


The Fray in the Edges

by Rochelle_Templer



Category: Bones (TV)
Genre: Episode Related, Gen, brief mentions of violence, missing and extended scenes, this was a dark episode so expect plenty of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-19
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2019-04-04 14:21:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14022168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rochelle_Templer/pseuds/Rochelle_Templer
Summary: A re-telling of the episode The Bullet in the Brain from Sweets' perspective.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is an older fic which I wrote in response to The Bullet in the Brain after thinking about how much had to have happened both during the episode and in-between scenes which was left unsaid.
> 
> I'll be making a few references to my own head-canons for Sweets' background which I know aren't totally canon-compliant anymore, but shouldn't interfere too much with the story.

How many people could wake up in the morning knowing that today was the day that they would have to come face-to-face with evil?

It was this thought that lurked in the back of Doctor Lance Sweets’ mind all morning. As he walked toward the prison transport van, he couldn’t stop thinking about how he would soon be sitting across from someone who could easily qualify as evil personified. The psychologist had read and analyzed many case studies and had even interacted with some profoundly disturbed individuals through the course of his work.

But all of that experience and training seemed inadequate in the presence of someone like Heather Taffet.

Before he had ever met her, Sweets had spent many hours studying the Gravedigger case. It was the sort of thing that swiftly reached an almost legendary status in the field of forensic psychology: a killer who was not only a true sociopath but one who remained methodical and intelligent along with heartless and amoral. This was the type of criminal who would go on killing for years, consistently evading the efforts of law enforcement, who would have to hope that the killer would make a mistake. That mistake was finally made when the Gravedigger crossed paths with Booth and everyone at the Jeffersonian.

Sweets sat down in the van and tried to clear his mind with a mild form of meditation so as to center and calm himself. It was one thing to read about the pathology of the Gravedigger. It was something else to meet Taffet.

The psychologist shuddered when he remembered the first time he met her in person. In an effort to save Booth from being another one of the Gravedigger’s fatalities the team, along with Booth’s brother Jared, managed to unmask federal attorney Heather Taffet as the elusive serial killer. Sweets had observed her while she was held prisoner at the lab, and he hadn’t been able to get rid of the nagging sense that she embodied the same kind of evil that his biological father, Andrew had. After all, it wasn’t a far leap from whipping a child until he bled to burying one alive in a box.

Sweets knew, however that it wasn’t just a fleeting impression. He was convinced that Taffet was more than the sum of her crimes, and he got his proof of that during her trial.

He had met a couple times with her to assess her psychological state of mind in the legal sense and to test her competency to stand trial. Taffet had remained controlled and impassive during these interviews. Looking back on it, Sweets was certain that it was an effort on her part to make it difficult for him to gain any sort of insight into her. Her muted demeanor had little effect in swaying the therapist’s assessment of her. Especially when he watched the way she defended herself during the proceedings.

The psychologist hadn’t been surprised when Cam dropped by his office during the trial with concerns about everyone in their team. Even though he had not suffered a direct assault from Taffet either through her criminal activities or her psychological tormenting in and out of the courtroom, Sweets could feel the miasma infecting his close friends and co-workers. At the time he had wished that he could do more to help them, but it wasn’t until Taffet’s conviction came through that everyone started to move past those dark feelings.

Sweets fidgeted in his seat as he heard the clank of chains signaling Taffet’s approach. When he had heard that she had requested counseling during her transfer to her latest appeal, he had been surprised. But when a judge informed him that Taffet had specifically requested him, the surprise became shock.

‘ _Why does she want to talk to me now?’_ he wondered. ‘ _She never did before. I know she feels no sense of remorse or guilt for what’s she’s done, and I doubt that she’s suddenly become anxious that she might not be able to dodge the death penalty. So what does she want?’_

Sweets considered turning down the request. Despite his “deeper calling” to help others, he had zero desire to administer to her. After thinking it over though, he decided to go through with it.

‘ _This is my job. My purpose,’_ he told himself. _‘To not only help those who need counseling but to probe the minds of some of the most depraved people on this planet. Booth, Brennan and the rest of them had to stand up to her. How can I call myself a member of this team if I’m not willing to do the same? If I allow her to make me cower away in fear?’_

Taffet stepped into the van, a smirk etched into her features. It didn’t disappear as she settled down in the seat across from him or when the van took off down the road. As the van started up, Sweets reached into his pocket and turned on a miniature recording device. Normally, he didn’t record his meetings with patients or prisoners, but he knew that he needed to keep careful records with Taffet since she was known to be equally meticulous.

The first few moments of travel were spent in silence which was fine by Sweets. He still believed this to be a farce and did not want to participate.

“You nervous, Doctor Sweets?”

Sweets shifted his gaze from the window to see Taffet staring at him with what he could have sworn was amusement in her eyes.

“You seem uncomfortable,” she added.

“I’m fine,” he insisted, turning on his most clinical tone. “I’m merely here to comply with your request for psychological counseling during transport. You comfortable?”

Taffet responded with a slight snort and a motion with her head indicating the shackles binding her wrists and ankles.

“Right,” Sweets spat out, looking away. He felt a little stupid for asking that.

“I do appreciate the company,” Taffet continued in a pale imitation of a conversational tone. “On death row, one spends so much time alone. It tests the sanity.”

‘ _There it is,’_ Sweets thought to himself. ‘ _This is the true reason she wanted to see me. Not to receive any sort of counseling, but to try and cast some doubt in my mind about her sanity.’_

Oh I assure you, you are sane,” the psychologist replied, unable to prevent some sarcasm from bleeding into his voice. “Technically speaking. And you’re not going to convince me otherwise, if that’s your plan to win your appeal.”

“So you know?” Taffet mumbled. Sweets gave a curt nod and for a second she looked vaguely disappointed.

“You remind me of a little boy dressed up in his father’s suit,” Taffet said. Sweets hardened his expression. He had grown somewhat accustomed to slights about his age and was determined to not let her insult bother him.

“Are you saying that I remind you of one of your victims?” he inquired, hoping to keep their conversation rooted in pathology and psychological analysis.

“You remind me of all of them, Lance,” Taffet said, her voice soft but venomous.

Sweets shivered inwardly at her use of his first name. It was as if he could hear Andrew’s voice reflected in her tone. It opened a door to an abundance of memories that he longed to forget: years spent at the mercy of a psychotic, abusive father. A frequent victim of Andrew’s rages.

‘ _Is that what she sees in me?’_ he asked himself. ‘ _Can Taffet actually sense some kind of residue from that part of my life?’_

Sweets tried to reason away this notion by reminding himself that it was just as likely that she had done some research on him. She had been given internet and library access so she could work on her appeals, and there were some things from his childhood that were a matter of public record. 

His reasoning was not able to stop his painful memories and feelings from stirring toward the surface. He felt exposed…vulnerable.

As they drew closer to the courthouse, the therapist could hear the shouts of protestors lining the streets. Taffet surveyed them with no more interest than if she were watching a tailgating party outside a stadium.

“These people are so unreasonable,” she said with some mirth.

“Most of them are here in protest,” Sweets responded, eager to deflate her mocking tone. “There’s a remote possibility that your conviction could be overturned.”

“They’re deflecting, Doctor Sweets. You should know that,” she said, the smirk returning. The subtle barb couched in a classic psychological concept did not go unnoticed by the therapist. It was yet another reminder of her contempt for him.

“They know I’m not the only one responsible for my crimes,” Taffet said.

‘ _Typical criminally deviant behavior,’_ Sweets observed silently. ‘ _Blame the victim and the victim’s families for her actions instead of assuming sole responsibility. More than likely, she rationalized letting her victims suffocate when the ransom wasn’t paid by telling herself that they had forced her hand.’_

Sweets was jarred out of his reverie when he realized that the van had stopped for an inordinate amount of time.

“What’s wrong?” the therapist asked the driver.

“Change of plans,” the man responded dully.

Sweets sat back in his seat and watched as the van began to change directions toward the front of the building. The psychologist didn’t care for the idea of having to work their way through that mob, but he also noticed that Taffet didn’t seem the least bit unnerved by the prospect.

“I’m the lucky one, Lance,” she said, her voice unnaturally cheerful. “My appeal falls through, I die. But you’re forced to live every day as a repressed, immature, imbecile spouting canned theories to people who don’t really care.”

Taffet leaned a little closer to him, her eyes glittering with malice.

“Everyone knows who is the weakest link in the chain,” she said, letting her disgust course through her voice. “You testify at my appeal, and I’m going to walk.”

Sweets tried to glare at her, but soon looked away. He knew that if he kept his gaze with her for a moment longer he would begin to lose the tight rein he was struggling to maintain on his emotions.

* * *

 

Special Agent Seeley Booth was sure that he had had worse days than this, but right now none of them came to mind.

The agent knew that today would be a circus. The trial and appeals of Heather Taffet had continued to enthrall the public almost as much as it incited them. In the back of his mind, however, Booth had held onto the faint hope that boredom was setting in and that Taffet’s latest appeal would not peak as much interest.

That hope was immediately squashed when he saw the mass of people gathering around the barricades in anticipation of the Gravedigger’s arrival. Quiet milling around soon turned into shouted chants and jeers as the number of people increased. The signs they held up almost seemed whimsical if not for the macabre messages written on them. Controlling this crowd would be a nightmare.

Still Booth decided to be on the offensive even as he delegated jobs to the local authorities while keeping a close eye on the activities. The situation could turn ugly in an instant, and he was here to make sure that did not happen.

Caroline Julian was standing nearby, occasionally making snarky remarks about the upcoming proceedings. Much of it passed by Booth without much notice as he tried to focus on maintaining order and safety. But then three words did manage to get his attention.

“There she is.”

Booth turned to see the transport van pull up and watched its slow approach. A large part of him was hoping that this appeal would be short and to the point so that he would be one step closer to never having to think about Heather Taffet ever again.   

A burst of static on Booth’s walkie talkie along with a security guard running over to him made Booth aware of a major derailment in the plans: the gate to the parking garage wasn’t opening, and no one knew when it would start working again.

‘ _Unbelievable,’_ the agent thought to himself. ‘ _Why didn’t they check on this before now? I don’t need this hassle.’_

Booth scowled; one thing that years spent in the Army Rangers and then in the FBI had given him was the ability to work around any sort of pressure.

‘ _A change of plans it is then,’_ he told himself.

Booth barked out orders to go ahead and let Taffet out at the front of the courthouse instead of in the garage. The agent shared Caroline’s incredulous frustration at having to do things this way, but saw no other option, which he pointed out to her.

The agent jogged in-between the van and the police cars as they ambled toward the front of the building, only stopping to occasionally give a firm shove to some wayward protestors to get them out of the way. As he moved, he thought again about Caroline’s concern in relation to trying to get Taffet into the courthouse through the front door. He wasn’t really that concerned for Taffet’s safety, but he also knew that there was the possibility that Sweets could get caught up in a mob of angry citizens trying to get to Taffet since the psychologist was accompanying her.

Booth winced when he thought of Sweets. Caroline had told him that Taffet had requested “psychological counseling” during her trip toward her appeal, and she had protested to it vehemently.

‘ _I’m telling you, cherie, she’s up to something. Acting like she suddenly needs some shrinking. She’s just trying to get inside his head. I told that judge that, and he wouldn’t listen. You need to talk that shrink of yours. He listens to you. You can’t let Taffet get to him.’_

At the time, Booth had been extremely tempted to follow through with her suggestion. He thought back to Taffet’s trial and remembered how deeply she managed to get under Brennan’s skin. By the end of it, the agent wasn’t sure what had angered him more: that he had also been one of the Gravedigger’s victims or that she was driving Brennan toward an existence filled with nightmares and self-doubt.

Booth sighed inwardly as he watched the crowd. He hadn’t wanted Sweets to go through anything like that. He knew that the psychologist was a strong person in a lot of ways, but Booth also knew that he struggled with many demons. Some of which mirrored the ones in the agent’s soul. Booth did not want Taffet to have a chance to exploit that.

But he also knew that pressuring Sweets to shy away from his duties would plant the seed of doubt in the psychologist’s mind. For the past few years, Booth had strived toward making Sweets feel like the valued and trusted member of his team that the agent considered him to be. He did not want to impede the progress that had been made in building the therapist’s confidence.

‘ _Look Caroline, it’s fine,’_ Booth had told the attorney. ‘ _Sweets is the best there is. He will do his job no matter what Taffet tries to do. And I’m not going to make him think that I don’t trust him to do his job by trying to persuade him that avoiding Taffet is for his own good.’_

As he watched the van pull to a stop, Booth reflected on his decision. Given the chance, he knew that he would have done the same thing over again, but that wasn’t going to stop him from having some concerns about how this confrontation went.  Booth walked over to the door of the van so he could meet Sweets when he got out.

When the door opened and Sweets started to make his way out, Booth was worried that his concerns were coming to life. The psychologist was clearly shaken even as he worked hard to try and hide it.

“You ok?” Booth asked as he guided Sweets out of the van.

“Yeah,” Sweets answered in a clipped tone.

“All right, what did she say?” the agent asked, unconvinced that everything was benign as Sweets was trying to let on.

“Nothing worth repeating,” the therapist said, carefully avoiding Booth’s eyes.

“Nothing worth repeating,” Booth parroted. “All right.”

The agent continued to guide Sweets along, patting his back once they got close to the police car. Booth was pretty sure Sweets could use the encouraging gesture, judging from the tense, nervous stance the psychologist was currently taking.

‘ _Nothing worth repeating? I doubt that,’_ Booth thought. He was now convinced that Taffet had gotten to Sweets somehow, and from the look of it, it had been brutal.

The agent went back to overseeing things with security. He figured that he might as well concentrate on getting Taffet into the building before worrying about anything else. Once that was done, he could pull Sweets aside for a few minutes to talk things over, and he made a mental note to do so.

Booth looked back up and scanned the crowd for any possible trouble, and one face at the front of the crowd stood out for him.

‘ _I know him,’_ Booth mused. ‘ _That…that’s Kent. The father of those twin boys Taffet killed.’_

Booth knew that he would never forget the case that introduced him to the Gravedigger. Even though he had been able to offer some slight comfort to Kent that his boys acted bravely and that not paying the ransom had not cost their lives, as a father, Booth had an inkling of what the man had went through. He wasn’t surprised that Kent had shown up for this, but something seemed off about how he was standing there, shakily filming this whole thing.

The agent put it aside and went back to going over some details with security. He was so caught up in what he was doing, he barely noticed the sickening sound of a bullet impacting violently with flesh.

While gasps and screams erupted from the crowd, Booth’s reflexes instantly came into play. He pulled out his gun and whirled toward the sound. The agent was immediately relieved to see that it had been Taffet and not Sweets who had been hit. Booth only contemplated the gruesome sight of Taffet’s corpse for a second when he realized that Sweets was still wandering around in the open.

“Whoa, whoa whoa….down, down down,” Booth ordered as he ran over, grabbed the psychologist’s arm and yanked him back toward the car.  Sweets silently complied by sliding downward against side of the vehicle, while Booth looked around for the possible origin of the shot.

As he looked around, the agent was stunned to see Kent still standing there, filming away after most of the crowd had run.

‘ _He didn’t run. Why didn’t he run?’_ Booth asked himself.

Confident that Kent had not been the shooter even if he was acting suspiciously, the agent instead turned his focus back toward Taffet and Sweets. A large stream of blood was oozing past bits of flesh, skull, and brain matter. Booth swallowed hard as he pushed down the nausea that he felt.

He then looked over at Sweets and noticed the glazed look in the psychologist’s eyes as he stared at what was left of Taffet. Booth carefully took Sweets by the arms, minding the gore on the therapist’s suit.

“Sweets…Lance…are you ok?” Booth asked in a low, controlled voice. It took almost a minute for the question to register, but the psychologist finally nodded his head a little. Booth gently led him back toward the car and opened the back door.

“Here, I need you to sit down here,” the agent told him while pushing Sweets down to sit on the backseat, still facing outward. Once he was settled, Booth crouched down in front of him. The agent noticed that Sweets had become very pale and that he was starting to shiver.

‘ _Probably going into shock,’_ Booth thought. He couldn’t blame Sweets for that, but he was also aware of the need to keep the psychologist still while he tended to the scene.

“Hey Sweets…Sweets?” Booth said, trying to communicate with him. He saw that Sweets was continuing to stare at the body on the ground instead of responding to what Booth was saying.

“Sweets,” the agent said with more force. “Hey, don’t look at that, look at me.” Booth was relieved when Sweets did as asked.

“Ok, now just listen to me,” Booth continued. “An ambulance is going to be called and it will be here soon. Once it gets here, we will have you checked out.  And…I know that you probably don’t want to hear this, but we’re going to need the stuff you’re wearing for evidence. So I need you to just sit here, relax and wait for me. Then once the forensic techs get what they need and you’ve been looked over, I’ll take you home so you can get cleaned up and change. All right?”

Sweets still wouldn’t speak, but he did give another nod in response. Booth stood back up and started to leave when the psychologist grabbed at his sleeve. The sudden movement startled the agent, and he couldn’t help but notice the fear in Sweets’ eyes.

“It’s ok, Sweets. It’s over,” Booth said, gingerly moving the therapist’s hand away. “Look, I’m going to be over there checking things out and giving a statement. So I’m not going very far, I promise.”

The psychologist nodded again, his eyes returning to a more haunted, vacant stare. Booth watched him for a moment more before going over to check on the other people still there. A few minutes later the ambulance arrived and the agent went back over to get Sweets.

“Come on,” Booth said, helping him to his feet. “Let’s get this over with.”

“Ok,” Sweets said in a tiny voice. Booth was grateful that Sweets was becoming more responsive even though his movements were still slow and robotic.

But Booth also knew that this would not be the end of it for him or for Sweets, and that was what he was dreading right now.

 


	2. Chapter 2

While Sweets sat in the ambulance and tried to answer the questions put to him as best he could, he found himself disturbed at how faulty his memory had become.

He vividly remembered Taffet’s icy stare at him as she left the van and walked toward the courthouse. Her eyes had seemed to bore right through him, and even though he wanted to look away, he couldn’t. Suddenly her face was gone, and the psychologist found himself being splattered with blood, bone and tissue. After that point, Sweets’ perception of time became distorted. Despite standing out in the middle of the street on a sunny day, the psychologist felt like he was underwater, drowning under a flood of thoughts and emotions.

He could vaguely recall Booth snatching his arm and ordering him to get down. Sweets had complied mainly on instinct. Standing and watching the blood and gore that used to be Heather Taffet’s head, Sweets thought that he would have a panic attack for sure. Instead he felt cold, much like how he felt when Taffet was staring at him, but even more so.

The therapist could still bring forth hazy memories of Booth sitting him down somewhere and then taking him to the ambulance. But then he was shocked to realize that he had no memory of taking off his suit and shoes, even though he had been able to deduce that they were taken as evidence. There was only a faint recollection of Booth helping to wrap a blanket around him tightly when he was left with only an undershirt and boxers.

This brought Sweets up to the present where an EMT finished up checking his vitals and another agent walked over to take his statement. The psychologist tried to be as thorough as he could about the facts surrounding Taffet’s death while his mind struggled to get back up to speed. He felt, however, that there was a lot missing from his statement. It wasn’t purposeful omissions, but the things Sweets knew he would remember the best had little to do with forensic or investigative facts: like the way Taffet’s words had wormed themselves into his brain or the way she had made him start to re-live some of the blackest corners of his childhood. None of this would be of much interest to the people questioning him, and the therapist was grateful for that.

“Don’t just stand there. We’ve got a shrink who needs shrunk, and a headless child killer in a puddle of brains.”

Sweets flinched at the way Caroline was bellowing at Booth.

 _‘”A shrink who needs shrunk?”’,_ he thought to himself. The psychologist might have smiled if not for the fact that he was the “shrink” in question.

‘ _Everyone knows who is the weakest link in the chain.’_

 _‘I guess even Caroline knows it,’_ Sweets thought glumly. ‘ _So much for convincing Booth or Brennan that the old adage of therapists needing therapy isn’t true.’_

Sweets continued to let his eyes flicker back and forth from the person talking to him to watching Booth talk to Brennan, who had just arrived at the scene.

‘ _Doctor Brennan looks relieved,’_ he observed. ‘ _Most of the time she would never admit it, but she worries about Booth in dangerous situations like this. She knows he’s a warrior, a risk taker.’_

After he finished giving his statement, Sweets kept watching the interactions between Booth and Brennan, finding it oddly soothing somehow. He imagined that it might seem a little strange to feel this way, but he knew that watching them was giving him a much needed distraction if nothing else.

Soon another person started to walk toward him. The therapist swiftly realized that the man was some kind of trauma counselor based on the first things he said to him and the types of questions that he asked. Sweets didn’t feel like pointing out that he too was a trained psychologist, so he played along with listening to what was said to him and halfheartedly answered the questions that were asked.

‘ _Yes…traumatic event…extreme stress…shock…more than likely becoming PTSD,’_ Sweets thought to himself. ‘ _I don’t need to be told this. I know all the symptoms.’_

Sweets pulled the blanket tighter around himself.

‘ _He’s just doing his job,’_ the psychologist told himself as he listened to the man adopt a more comforting tone. ‘ _It’s probably not very far from what I would be doing right now if I had a patient who had suffered an event like this.’_

This awareness did not make Sweets feel much better, and he was starting to wish that he could be left alone.

‘… _a repressed, immature, imbecile spouting canned theories to people who don’t really care.’_

Sweets swallowed hard, and he was glad that the trauma counselor hadn’t noticed it.

‘ _Is this how the others feel when I try to counsel them during their darkest moments?’_ he began to wonder. ‘ _Are they just waiting for me to be quiet so they can find their own solace? Am I just intruding on them with all my “psychological insight”?’_

The therapist was so lost in his own thoughts; he barely noticed it when the trauma counselor finally left. He continued to watch everyone move about the scene, still unable to process what most of them were saying.

“Sweets.”

The psychologist jumped a little at Booth’s voice, startled to find him standing right next to him.

“The EMT’s seem to think you’re fine and the techs have got what they need,” Booth said, pulling a baggie out of his pocket which contained Sweets’ keys, wallet, cell phone and recording device. The agent handed it to him.

“Come on. I’ll take you home so you can get some new clothes and a shower,” Booth told him.

“Thank you,” Sweets murmured as he stood up. The two of them walked over to Booth’s SUV, the therapist still wrapped up in his blanket. A couple minutes later they were speeding off down the road.

The ride was a silent one. Sweets sat almost perfectly still, his eyes fixed on one point on the road ahead of them and did not speak a word. Booth kept glancing over at him, making sure that Sweets did not lapse back into shock.

The agent thought back to Sweets was involved in the subway accident some time back. That had also involved a fatality happening right in front of the psychologist, and Booth could easily recall how affected Sweets was by it. But Booth could sense that this was very different somehow and not just because the death had been more violent in nature. Instead of trying to talk through what he thought about the whole thing, Sweets seemed to be shutting down and avoiding any reassurance that people tried to give him.

‘ _There has to be something there,’_ Booth thought. ‘ _Something that Sweets isn’t telling us that’s making him react this way.’_

Booth couldn’t help the bitter irony that he sometimes wished that Sweets would stop being so nosy, talkative, and energetic. Now that he had it, Booth knew that he infinitely preferred that version of Sweets to this mute, pliant, shadow of the psychologist who was sitting in his car right now.

* * *

 

When they arrived at the apartment building, Booth insisted on accompanying Sweets to his door in case there were issues about the therapist walking around barefoot in a blanket with blood splattered on his face and neck. Thankfully there was no one wandering the hallways to explain it all too. Sweets did, however, reject Booth’s offer to hang around after they got inside.

“I’m all right,” Sweets protested weakly. “You should get back to the office.” Booth couldn’t deny that he had a point.

“Yeah…well just take the rest of the day off, ok?” the agent said as he started to leave. “Give yourself a chance to get over this.”

“No,” Sweets replied with a surprising amount of force. “I don’t…I don’t want to just sit here at home. I need…to do something.” The psychologist looked down and away from the agent to stare at his carpet.

“Ok, I understand,” Booth nodded. “Get yourself together, and I’ll meet you back at the office.” The agent then walked off toward the elevator.

“See you then,” Sweets said, closing the door behind him.

After it was shut, the therapist dropped the blanket he was wrapped in to the ground and immediately headed off to the bathroom. He turned the water onto its hottest setting and stepped in after taking the time to throw away the undershirt and boxers he had been wearing. Even though they didn’t have any blood on them, Sweets was certain that he never wanted to see them again.

Standing under the showerhead, Sweets tried to work through the events of the day. He knew that he wasn’t really upset over Taffet’s death. She had spent a lifetime hurting innocent people and this shooting only hastened what was sure to be an inevitable execution.

Sweets looked down to see pale, red swirls of water wash down the drain as he rinsed off. It occurred to him that the violent method of Taffet’s demise was undeniably upsetting, as was the fact that he had been standing so close to her.

 _‘That could have been me,’_ he thought. ‘ _It could have just as easily been my head that…that….’_

Sweets began to shake again and tried to brace himself against the shower wall.

‘ _Maybe it was supposed to be me. Maybe whoever it was just happened to hit Taffet instead. Granted, it’s not like the world really needed Heather Taffet to exist one minute longer than she did, but what if…what if they…try again?’_

Sweets’ shivering increased, but it soon dawned on him that that was partially because the shower had run out of hot water and now he was standing under an icy torrent. He turned it off and after quickly drying, he went to get dressed.

‘… _you’re forced to live every day as a repressed, immature, imbecile…’_

 _‘She’s dead…but I’m still here. Just like she said,’_ Sweet pondered as he searched through his closet for something to wear.

‘ _You’re worthless, Lance.’_

The psychologist trembled as Andrew’s voice crept back into his mind. He became nauseated at how much Taffet had been able to bring those memories back to the center of his thoughts.

He swiftly yanked on a brown suit, skipping a tie in his haste and almost sprinted back out toward the front door to gather his personal things which he had deposited on his way in on a side stand. As he was stuffing his cell phone into his pocket, it started to ring.

“Hello?” he answered.

“Doctor Sweets, it’s Doctor Saroyan,” the voice on the line said. “Booth told us what happened, and mentioned that you might need a ride back to the Bureau, so I thought I’d drop by your apartment and pick you up.”

“Thank you, Doctor Saroyan, really,” Sweets said. “But you don’t have to do that. I can just get a cab.”

“I’m already on my way,” Cam responded. “Besides, I needed to stop by there anyway to check up on some things from the FBI’s forensic techs for our investigation at the lab. So it’s no bother. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

The pathologist hung up, and Sweets decided that it was just as well that she was coming so he wouldn’t have to endure the hassle of trying to catch a taxi. He pocketed his phone and went outside to meet her in the parking lot. He ended up pacing around on the pavement for only a minute or two before he saw her drive in, and he strode over to meet her. After he got in, Cam put a hand on his forearm.

“Before we get going, I just wanted to know how you are holding up,” she said gently.

“I’m ok,” Sweets answered. “I mean….It’s over, and I want to get back to the office so I can help Booth with the investigation.”

“All right,” Cam said as she got the car into gear. “I just…If you need anything, please let us know, ok? Me, Booth, Brennan, Hodgins, Angela…we’re all here for you.”

“I know,” Sweets said, looking down at the floor mats. “Thank you for that.” He turned to stare out the window quietly and stayed that way for a little while until he began to think about how his demeanor could be perceived.

‘ _If I’m too quiet, they’ll think something’s wrong,’_ he figured. ‘ _I can’t let them think that I can’t handle this.’_

The psychologist cleared his throat to get Cam’s attention.

“So…I understand that Doctor Brennan is going to try to reconstruct Ta….the skull,” Sweets said.  The pathologist shot him a look of astonishment before answering.

“Um…yes,” she said. “And I have Wendell processing the um…physical evidence from your suit. Hodgins will be working on the bullet once it’s sent over from the FBI.”

Sweets tried to be attentive as Cam continued on about the details that the Jeffersonian were handling in this case, hopeful that burying himself in this investigation would be enough to distract him for a little while from the turmoil in his psyche.

* * *

 

When she ran out of case related information to relate, Cam took to watching Sweets whenever she could while driving. The pathologist thought back to the phone call she had with Booth when she mentioned that she was heading to the Hoover building and offered to give the psychologist a ride.

‘ _Cam, it wasn’t just shock,’_ Booth had told her. ‘ _You didn’t see that look in his eyes…I think Taffet said something to him right before it happened. And I don’t think that sitting at home alone is the best thing for him at the moment.’_

At first, Cam wasn’t sure about Booth’s argument that the psychologist would be better off at work, but seeing how much Sweets seemed to want to work instead of reflect persuaded her that the agent was probably right.

‘ _Work would probably be better for Sweets right now,’_ she mused. ‘ _After all, he already seems a little better than what Booth was letting on over the phone.’_

* * *

 

A few moments later they arrived at the Hoover building, and the two of them walked in together.

“Thank you again for the ride, Doctor Saroyan,” Sweets said, starting to walk away from her. “I have some things I need to do so I’ll just….”

“Oh, of course,” Cam said. “I will talk to you later. And…remember what I said Sweets. If you need anything, let us know.”

“I will. Thank you,” the psychologist said as he walked off. Cam watched him leave before heading in her own direction to talk to the FBI’s forensic department.

* * *

 

 When Sweets arrived in his office, he noticed that his secretary, Becky had left and that there was a note from her on her desk, informing him that all of his therapy appointments had been cancelled for the day. Reading it, Sweets realized that Booth must have told her what had happened and that the two of them had made arrangements to lighten his workload for the rest of the day. The therapist chafed a little at the idea that all of this had been done without his consent, but in the end, he decided that it was probably for the best.

 _‘It wouldn’t be fair to my patients if I tried to work with them while I’m in this state,’_ he thought. ‘ _It’s not like I’m performing anywhere near my best today.’_

_‘Everyone knows who is the weakest link in the chain.’_

Taffet’s words kept echoing in an endless loop through his thoughts. As if on autopilot, Sweets found himself pulling up a chair and pulling out the recorder out of his pocket as he sat down. He then began to play it over and over again.

‘ _You remind me of a little boy dressed up in his father’s suit.’_

_‘I’m the lucky one, Lance….’_

At first,  Sweets wasn’t entirely sure why he kept playing it. All it did was further imprint her words into his brain. But the moment he stopped playing it, the reason started to become clear.

‘ _You’re a stupid worthless brat, Lance. No one ever wanted you, and no one ever will.’_

Almost anything was preferable to brooding over the memories that had re-surfaced about his childhood. Even listening to Taffet’s hateful words. So he kept on playing it, letting her words soak into his soul.

As he listened, a part of him hoped that Booth would come by soon and ask for his help on the case, desperate for anything to distract him from his own thoughts.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

Over the years, Booth had had to learn to handle the frustration he often faced during an investigation when he struggled to find any worthwhile suspects. This time, however, he faced the problem of too many suspects to choose from.

Whenever Booth wasn’t contemplating the complexities of Taffet’s assassination, he was confronted with an ever-growing list of possibilities for her murderer, all of whom were sure to be pleased that the Gravedigger’s execution came earlier than expected. Criminals she had put away, victims she had kidnapped along with their families and friends, and even misguided vigilantes who had been following the trials on TV and who decided to take matters into their own hands: all of them had to be considered in this case.

Booth had hoped that going over what he remembered about the shooting with Caroline would help him to narrow down the suspect pool, but instead she presented him with more questions to consider and threw in a couple of unpleasant additions to the suspect list for good measure.

‘ _I can’t believe that she wants to put me on the suspect list,’_ the agent thought to himself, exasperated. ‘ _That had to have been a long-range shot. Impossible to achieve where I was standing.’_

Booth might have been annoyed that he had been included into the pool of potential suspects, but he dreaded the fact that Max Keenan had been added as well.

‘ _Bones is not going to like that. Even though she knows he’s a criminal and capable of murder, he’s still her father.’_

He continued to mull over the idea that Max was the shooter and found that he couldn’t decide one way or the other if it was possible. Caroline was right in saying that Max had tried to kill Taffet before, but it had been a half-hearted attempt with Max leaving plenty of hints of what he was planning to do, making it easy for Booth to stop him.

Still, Booth knew that he would never feel completely at ease around Brennan’s father. It was true that Max was a charming, devoted father, but he was also a cunning, ruthless criminal when he felt he needed to be. Plus, he had demonstrated before that he would be willing to do almost anything to protect Brennan and her brother Russ from any sort of threat.

The agent decided to delay the inevitable discussion he knew he would have with his partner and went to go check on Sweets. Cam had called him earlier to let Booth know that she had dropped Sweets off at the Hoover Building and to tell him that the psychologist seemed well, but Booth continued to have his doubts that Sweets was shrugging the whole thing off so quickly.

He reached Sweets’ office door and had his hand on the doorknob when he hesitated. Booth had become so accustomed to being able to barge into the therapist’s office whenever he felt like it that the action had pretty much become automatic. But then he remembered how jittery Sweets had been at the crime scene and figured that it wouldn’t be a good idea to startle the therapist any further. He decided that a hearty warning knock on the door was in order.

“Yeah?”

After hearing Sweets acknowledge him, Booth opened up the door and walked inside to find him sitting in a chair and facing the wall.

“Hey, you ok?” Booth asked as he stepped into the room. Sweets immediately stood and struggled to put a smile on his face.

“Fine,” the psychologist answered as he put the chair he was sitting in back at his desk. “I should be asking you if you’re ok.” Booth shrugged at that comment. A part of him wished that he could say that seeing someone’s head blow up was an unusual sight for him, but he knew that that was far from reality.

“I’m fine,” he answered. “You’re the one who had to take a shower.”

Booth couldn’t help but notice how Sweets kept moving things about as if to distract himself. Most would have chalked it up to the psychologist’s usual nervous energy, but Booth was sure that it was yet another sign of Sweets’ agitation.

“You know, I can acknowledge that I witnessed a traumatic event,” Sweets said in an increasingly clinical tone. “But…for some reason be it textbook disassociation or the onset of PTSD…I feel relief.”

The agent felt the urge to smile, but suppressed it.  He wasn’t too surprised that Sweets decided to pull out a bunch of “shrink stuff” to explain how he felt since it when to the core of who Sweets was as a person.

“Well you survived,” Booth said, his own relief that Sweets had not been the victim in this case starting to seep into his voice.

 “Yeah, it’s more than that though,” the therapist continued. “I’m just glad that…Heather Taffet can’t hurt anyone anymore.”

“I get that,” Booth replied. When he thought about all the misery that Taffet had inflicted upon him and his team, Booth did find comfort in the idea that she would no longer be able to toy with any of them. He also was aware that Sweets was often very empathetic toward the moods of the people closest to him and figured that he probably felt the same sort of release they all felt.

Booth started to leave so that Sweets could have some more time to himself to process the events of the day when a sound from the psychologist stopped him.

“Um….a thought occurred to me,” Sweets mumbled, looking back down at the carpet. Booth moved back toward him and watched as Sweets swallowed hard and struggled to get his words out.

“You…you don’t think that shot was meant for me, do you?” the psychologist finally asked, glancing back up at Booth.

Booth instantly felt sick to his stomach. He had been so focused on the idea that Taffet had been the intended victim that he hadn’t considered the possibility that the actual target could have been Sweets. After hearing Sweets vocalize it, the agent found himself repulsed and enraged at the thought that one of his people could have their head shattered into pieces by a bullet.

“I mean, she asked for me to be there,” Sweets added.

Booth shook himself to help erase that image from his mind. Even though he hated the idea of someone close to him meeting that sort of end, he was still convinced that the killer was aiming for Taffet. Everything from the difficulty of the shot, to the way it was executed spoke of someone with a lot of training and skill. It was unlikely that a person like that would miss their target.

The agent was aware, however, that he was able to make that call mainly because he had had extensive training and experience as a sniper and had a slightly less personal perspective on the whole thing. For someone like Sweets, who was so close to the line of fire and who lacked this knowledge, it wasn’t a difficult leap to wonder if they were in real danger given the chain of events that had occurred.

‘ _How long has he been thinking that he could be next?’_ Booth asked himself. ‘ _Has he been thinking this whole time? That someone had merely missed and that there would be another attempt on his life at some point? An attempt that could have a far different result…?’_

Booth walked over the psychologist, chiding himself as he did for not thinking of this sooner. He was now determined to put Sweets’ fears to rest.

“Whoa, whoa whoa…Sweets,” Booth said, his voice gentle but firm. “Whoever did this was aiming at one thing: Taffet’s head.  He got off a clean shot. You got me?”

Sweets nodded his head, and Booth was happy to see that he seemed to be taking his words to heart, but now he was worried that the trauma of what happened along the fear of another attempt on his life was taking too big of a toll on the psychologist. He was certain that Sweets would need some quiet time to continue to work through the events of the day.

“Hey, take the day off, all right?” Booth told him. “Get some rest.”

“You don’t need my help with the investigation?” Sweets asked as the agent backed up toward the door.

Booth winced at Sweets’ question.  He remembered how Cam had told him how Sweets had immediately headed off to the Jeffersonian after Booth had tried to get him to take the day off to recover from the subway accident where he had to watch a former cancer patient die in front of him. The agent knew Sweets often needed to help people and feel useful in order to cope with events like this, but he didn’t want to push the psychologist too hard.

“If I do, you’ll be the first one I call,” he answered.

Booth knew that it sounded clumsy coming out of his mouth, but he hoped that Sweets would realize his intent.

On the surface, that appeared to be the case, and Booth continued to walk out the door, making sure to shut it behind him at Sweets’ request.

As he walked back down the hallways, Booth found that he still felt uneasy about the state that Sweets was in. He decided to make sure to check in on him again at some point and to try to come up with something for him to do.

He just wished that he could shake the nagging feeling he had that there was something else that Sweets wasn’t telling him.

* * *

 

Back in his office, Sweets yanked the chair he was sitting in back out from his desk and plopped down into it. He then started listening to the recording of Taffet’s words again.

‘ _Everyone knows who’s the weakest link in the chain.’_

 _She’s right…That’s why I’m sitting here doing nothing while everyone else is investigating Taffet’s murder,’_ he thought to himself. ‘ _It’s why Booth can try to send me home without hardly any hesitation….Because even if they won’t say it aloud, they know the exact same thing Taffet knew….that I’m just dead weight. A weak link.’_

Sweets slumped down in his chair and tried staring at his worn, greyish carpet. When he made the decision years ago to join the Bureau as one of their youngest practicing psychologist and profilers ever, he had been convinced that he could not only help people with his practice but could also help society in some small way by helping agents catch criminals with his profiling skills.

At first he had been infinitely more satisfied with his practice that his profiling work because he could actually see the impact he had on his patients’ lives despite the hurdles he faced due to his youth. But his life changed considerably after meeting Brennan and Booth for the first time as patients.  Soon he found himself not only drawn into their world at the Jeffersonian, he felt like he belonged somewhere again…a feeling he hadn’t had since his parents passed away.

As time went on, everyone, especially Booth, started to rely on him for more and more tasks. Sweets not only worked up profiles for Booth’s cases, he often participated in the investigation and helped with interrogations. His work with Brennan and Booth on their partnership quickly extended to him counseling members of Brennan’s team at the Jeffersonian as well. Even some of the interns sought out his advice to help deal with the unique work dynamic they encountered at the Medico-Legal lab.

All this had made Sweets incredibly busy, but it also made him feel fulfilled on a professional level and left him with a deep sense of contentment on a personal level.

But there were times when he questioned his worth to the Jeffersonian team. When faced with the great skill of Booth’s investigative mind and the brilliant, analytical talents of everyone at the Jeffersonian, Sweets could help but see his efforts as little more than extraneous matter.

Oddly enough, one of the times that this feeling was the strongest involved Heather Taffet.

When Taffet kidnapped Booth and demanded the evidence from the Gravedigger case as ransom, everyone at the Jeffersonian worked furiously with what forensic evidence they could gather to find some sort of clue to save him. He had wanted to help, but the others had shut him out of the case at first. Eventually, though they decided to let him participate in their efforts, even though it turned out that there wasn’t much for him to do.

‘ _Taffet must have seen it then…when we held her at the lab,’_ Sweets mused. ‘ _She     probably noticed how little I was able to contribute, and she didn’t forget about it.’_

The therapist hung his head down further as his mood continued to become increasingly morose. Without even touching the recording device, Taffet’s words managed to chime in again.

‘ _…a repressed immature imbecile spouting canned theories to people who don’t really care.’_

 _‘And why would they care?’_ Sweets asked himself. ‘ _It’s not as if the “evidence” I provide can actually convict anyone. That’s why Booth needs Brennan and everyone else at the lab. Even my profiles can’t always pinpoint which person is the right suspect. That’s why Booth has to carefully sort through the evidence and interrogations. I’m not the only actually solving these crimes.’_

His thoughts took another dark turn when he remembered how most of his efforts to counsel his co-workers at the Jeffersonian would be cut short before any real insight could be gained by them taking off to complete some other task. Even Booth and Brennan, who were required to see him, tried to find all sorts of ways to avoid therapy sessions. Then there was the fiasco of his book about them….

‘ _There’s no real reason for them to care about anything I have to say,’_ he thought. ‘ _What’s the point? They could talk to a wall or open a book and get about the same amount of results as I seem to get.’_

Sweets leaned over and put his head in his hands.

‘ _If they don’t care….why should I?’_

* * *

 

When trying to solve a murder, there were few things Booth hated more than when a suspect satisfied every consideration based on evidence, but did not match what he was certain of in his gut. Right now, the agent faced exactly that quandary.

Booth had continued to study the logistics of the sniper shot and finally decided that he needed to revisit the crime scene so he could get a better feel for all the facts fell into place. While he was there, Brennan had tried to persuade him that Max shouldn’t be a suspect while providing him with the evidence her father had given her to prove his innocence.

He had warned her that Max would have to stay on the suspect list for now, but Booth was beginning to have his doubts about the likelihood that her father had done this.

‘ _Max is a lot of things, but I don’t know if we can act expert sniper to the list,’_ he pondered as he looked around at the layout of the scene again. ‘ _Everything about this case, the handmade bullet, the great distance involved, the careful execution, point toward someone with a lot of expertise in marksmanship.’_

Booth recalled Max’s attempt at a long-range assassination during Taffet’s trial. The agent figured that Max probably could have made the shot since he was working from a relatively short distance and was using a good quality scope to aim his rifle. But his technique was far from the elite level that would be necessary for this murder.

While looking around at the buildings, Booth had been struck with another inspiration.

He remembered that one of the suspects, Harvey Morester, worked in one of the buildings that were directly in line with the area of origin. Looking over his file, Booth had noted that Morester had served in the military and had been considered and expert marksman.

‘ _Morester fits. He certainly had motive what with Taffet getting him disbarred. And he had means and opportunity with his training and his access to that building.’_

Booth considered it worth taking a second look at Morester in an interrogation room and had him brought in. But after watching him for only a couple of minutes, Booth was sure that Morester was not the killer. His years training and carrying out numerous sniper missions had given the agent the ability to sense the instincts required for this type of work in other people. It was something that always managed to resonate with that deeply hidden part of his nature.

Watching the former lawyer sweat, Booth could not sense a shred of that instinct in him, and he knew that he was not the one. The problem was that he wasn’t sure how he could explain that to other people, especially since one of those people happened to be Caroline Julian.

“You didn’t even ask him if he had an alibi for that day,” she scolded. “Now I know that no one is shedding any tears at the death of Heather Taffet, but that doesn’t mean we can afford to look like we don’t even care about catching her killer.”

Booth worked hard to refrain from scowling at her. Pursuing this lead would be a waste of time and resources that could be put to better use elsewhere. He needed a way to convince Caroline of that and was searching for one when an answer suddenly came to him.

‘ _Sweets could probably rattle off the profile of a trained sniper in his sleep’_ he thought. _‘Once I tell him about Morester, he’s sure to agree with me, and we can focus our attention on more viable leads.’_

Booth suggested to Caroline that they ask Sweets for his opinion and then the two of them started walking over the psychologist’s office.

Secretly, he was glad to have an excuse to drop by. He had been so wrapped up in the case; he hadn’t really had any time to see how Sweets was doing. His concern had only grown when he thought about how he hadn’t seen the therapist outside his office ever since he had come in.

Once he reached the door, Booth reminded himself again to knock first and then walked in.  The agent was immediately disturbed to see Sweets still sitting in the exact same spot from when he had stopped by to see him before.

“Agent Booth, Ms. Julian,” the psychologist said, rising to his feet.

“Sweets, I need your help with something,” Booth said, walking over toward him.

“Yes, and I need to understand why we should ignore the first real break we’ve had on this case,” Caroline said with more than a trace of snarkiness in her voice. 

Booth went on to tell Sweets all about Morester including his background and his demeanor in the interrogation room. As he talked, Booth noticed that Sweets was listening to him, but it was also clear that the psychologist was a million miles away mentally. Normally when processing a profile or building any sort of psychological insight, Sweets’ eyes would take on a certain glint that Booth had learned to recognize as his instincts starting to fire up. When it started to become even more intense and Sweets lapsed into what Booth called his “creepy stares”, the agent knew that the therapist’s mind was working at its peak abilities.

Right now though, Sweets merely stared at him with polite interest, and Booth did not enjoy it one bit.

“I don’t get it cherie,” Caroline huffed. “After listening to you tell him everything you’ve found out, I can see even fewer reasons why we shouldn’t consider that guy our main suspect.”

Booth began to pace around the office; he had hoped that Sweets would start persuading Caroline of the validity of his position, but the psychologist did not seem the least bit inclined to participate in the conversation.

“Look he is all wrong,” Booth protested. “We are looking for a trained sniper.” The agent paused in his pacing and turned back toward Sweets.

“Will you tell her?” he asked him.

Sweets’ only reply was to shrug his shoulders, giving Caroline plenty of opportunity to continue to voice her objections. Booth sighed again and looked over to see Sweets doing anything he could to avoid getting involved in the discussion.

“Sweets!” Booth said while clapping his hands. “Help me out here.”

“Uh…what do I know?” Sweets asked as he got up and turned away from them. Booth frowned at that. He could tell from Sweets’ tone and defeated posture that the psychologist was not trying to be sarcastic or belligerent and that worried him.

“What do you know? You know the profile,” the agent insisted causing Sweets to turn back toward them. Booth moved a little closer to him and made sure to look Sweets straight in the eye.

“Tell her,” he said in soft voice that he hoped would come off as being somewhere in-between an order and a request.

“Uh…ok…Agent Booth is right,” Sweets replied. “Most professionally trained snipers are methodical…controlled…clean…um…willing to kill under morally acceptable circumstances.”

“No, no no,” Booth said, cutting him off. “The sniper does not make the morality call. He’s just the hand that pulls the trigger.”

“With the faith that the target is a threat to innocent life,” the therapist responded.

“Right,” Booth nodded. Sweets looked back down at the chair he was leaning against, and the agent’s concern deepened. He had expected the psychologist to put up more of a fight to get his point across or perhaps even be interested as to why he had felt the need to separate the morals from the act of sniping. Instead Sweets seemed fine with adding nothing more.

“Is this a revenge killing?” Caroline asked.

“It’s more than that,” Sweets answered. “A rookie sniper would go through a transformative stage as he struggled to develop his professional identity….I believe you’re looking for someone whose process was distorted.”

“Good work, Sweets,” Booth said, trying to work in as much encouragement as he could into his voice.

“Good but slow,” Caroline said while continuing to watch the psychologist.

“Oh come on, you can’t blame a guy who’s not on his A game,” Booth protested, irritated that Caroline chose to point that out.

“You need some time to get your head together?” she asked Sweets.

“Really, I’m fine, ok?” Sweets snapped at her. Then, as if he realized how he probably sounded, the psychologist attempted a slight smile.

“Even under the best circumstances my A game deserves a C,” Sweets joked weakly. Booth, however, saw nothing funny in his statement in light of the way Sweets had been acting.

“Come on, that’s not true,” he insisted. He was then cut off by his cell phone ringing. He pulled it out to see that Angela had sent him an address that matched up with her analysis of the recordings of gunfire she had been given. After looking it over, he informed the others of Angela’s findings and watched Caroline and Sweets stare at each other silently.

Booth blinked when he saw the expression on Sweets’ face and motioned for Caroline to join him in leaving the psychologist’s office, telling Sweets on the way out that he would probably stop by again at some point.

As he walked out toward the elevator, Booth thought again about the look Sweets had given Caroline and him and frowned. He had seen that look one other time before….during the Gormogon case.

While they were searching for the identity of Gormogon and his apprentice, Sweets’ name had come up as a possible suspect. Booth knew that he would never forget the look on the psychologist’s face when he and Brennan had confronted him with their suspicions.

At first there had been nothing but hurt in Sweets’ eyes. That only lasted for a few seconds though and it was soon replaced with a cold, sarcastic glare that was driven home with the smarmy “confession” that Sweets gave them in response.

While it was happening, Booth had been angry at Sweets for being so glib. But having gotten to know the psychologist over the years, he now recognized that response as something else entirely: it was a way for Sweets to try and hide his wounds while lashing out before he could be hurt any further.

Booth couldn’t remember seeing that expression from Sweets again after that night, but it had definitely returned during their discussion.

‘ _Why is he acting like that? Does he think he’s going to get hurt in some way?’_ Booth wondered. ‘ _I was sure that I convinced him that the sniper is not after him. What does he think will….?’_

The elevator dinged just as the answer came to Booth. He stormed through the open doors and punched the button to go down.

‘ _Taffet. She told him something,’_ he silently fumed. ‘ _Something that’s not only making him doubt himself, but has also got him thinking that we’re going to turn on him at some point.’_

Booth yanked out his cell phone and called Brennan to let her know that he would be picking her up. The agent knew that he would have to focus on the case for now since it involved a dangerous assassin who could easily kill again. But he promised himself that he would get to the bottom of Sweets’ discussion with Heather Taffet the moment he had the chance.


	4. Chapter 4

After a long day of accomplishing next to nothing at work, Sweets found it difficult to get any sleep that night. His exhaustion was not enough to overcome the persistent echo of Taffet’s voice inside his head…or to keep the nightmares at bay.

The exact sequences and events would change, but in the end, all of Sweets’ nightmares revolved around the same things: blood and fear. The blood he had seen streaming down the sidewalk that day and the fear that made him unable to run away. The blood starting to flow from the wounds on his back and the fear that Andrew beat into every fiber of his being. The blood filled his senses: the color, the way it slowly dripped downward, the coppery smell. All of these nightmares were punctuated by the sound of Taffet’s laughter, her voice mocking his fear.

‘ _It’s just like I said, Lance…You’re nothing but a victim. Always have been…always will be. It’s only a matter of time before those “friends” of yours figure this out for themselves.’_

Sweets tried to shut her out, tried to ignore the hateful words, but then memories of Andrew’s taunts would take their place.

‘ _You’ll never escape me, Lance…No one’s ever going to want you…and they’re not going to save you either. You’re nothing…just a stupid worthless brat that no one could possibly love.’_

The psychologist jerked awake, crying out into his pillow. He then sat up and turned on his bedside lamp. Sweets leaned against the wall and worked to slow his breathing.

As he was going through a series of calming exercises, he happened glance over at the framed pictures he had by his bedside. There were pictures of his parents, of a cousin who he kept close contact with, and there was a group shot of everyone at the Jeffersonian.

Sweets reached over and picked that one up. He then recalled the day that it was taken. There had been yet another fundraiser for the Jeffersonian, and he and Booth had been invited as well due to their close work with the Medico-Legal lab. All of them had swiftly become bored with the “official” party and snuck off to create an impromptu party of their own in the lab. He and Hodgins had managed to pilfer some of the food while Angela rounded up some drinks. Cam supplied the music and some eclectic decorations and Brennan and Booth kept suggesting all kinds of strange, goofy party games. At some point during the festivities, one of the interns happened to stop by and take pictures of everyone. Angela downloaded the pictures into her computer and gave everyone copies.

The therapist traced his finger along the grinning faces. Despite all of extra work the Jeffersonian created for him via profiling for cases or from handling the sometimes crazy interpersonal relationships between his co-workers, Sweets had always been immensely grateful that he had been drawn into this makeshift family over time. Moments like the one depicted in this photo always managed to drive home just how thankful he was.

Sweets sat the photo back down and put his head into his hands.

‘ _Everyone knows who’s the weakest link in the chain.’_

 _‘She’s right…it’s only a matter of time,’_ he thought. ‘ _A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. That’s what they say, isn’t it? Eventually the others are going to realize this, and then they’ll want to get rid of their “weak link”. After all, who would want to burden themselves with someone like that anyway? I’m just surprised that they haven’t done it by now. Especially after that incident on the subway….’_

The therapist drew his blankets closer to him. The earthquake and subsequent subway accident that he had been in almost a year ago had shaken him to the core. The accident itself had been unsettling, but then seeing someone die right in front of him had forced Sweets to confront his own mortality in a way that he had tried to avoid for a long time.

Sweets tightened his grip on the sheets, balling them up in his clenched hands. Even though he had tried to shake the whole thing off and leave his personal turmoil out of the workplace, the psychologist had remained upset and distracted. He knew that everyone had noticed it. On the day it happened, everyone made sure that he went home for the day with Hodgins actually driving him there…not unlike what Booth had tried to do after Taffet’s assassination.

‘ _Pathetic,’_ he thought. _‘Here I was supposed to be helping them cope with the earthquake and assisting in the case, and instead they’re having to take care of me and my problems. We deal with death all the time in our work. I should have been able to just do my job handle it on my own.’_

The therapist released his hold on the blankets and slid back down into his bed.

‘ _And now, here I am again…letting Taffet and her death bother me. Everyone has been able to deal with it just fine. Everyone except me. How much longer are they going to want to have to coddle me? How long before they realize that my pitiful offerings do not begin to compensate for dragging them down with my issues?’_

Sweets looked over at his alarm clock and saw that it was only about hour before he would have to get up for work. He flung the sheets away and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He decided that he might as well start getting ready for the day since he could see it taking longer than usual for him to get going.

After all, people were still expecting him to do a job…or at least some facsimile of one…no matter how little it meant in the greater scheme of things.

* * *

 

Eventually Sweets made his way to the Hoover Building and drove into the third floor of the garage to park. It was still somewhat early and most of the parking spaces around him were empty. The dark cold space seemed to echo despite the near silence.

The psychologist reached into his pocket and pulled out a tie, staring at it in his hands. He had almost forgotten about it, much like he had the day before. But at the last moment he realized that he wasn’t wearing a tie and grabbed one out of his closet. He ended up stuffing it into his coat pocket instead of taking the time to put it on lest he lose his resolve to leave his apartment that day. As he drove to work, he told himself that he would put it on once he arrived.

Now that he was here, he started to drape it around his neck, but then found himself hesitating. Sweets had always made it a point to dress in suits and would rarely be seen in casual attire. Part of that was because his workaholic ways made it so that he was at his office almost every day. But equally important to him was the idea that he wanted to compensate for his youthful appearance by putting up the most professional demeanor he could. Sweets often felt like most his co-workers did not take him or his credentials seriously, so he hoped that he could give off a more mature, business-like presence through his clothing choices.

‘ _You remind me of a little boy dressed up in his father’s suit.’_

Sweets sighed and yanked his tie off, returning it to his pocket. Such reasoning felt foolish right now.

‘ _It’s just a sham. To them, I’ll always be this dumb kid who’s trying to pass himself off as an adult.’_

The therapist gripped the steering wheel and tried to focus on his breathing. Even without the recording device running, Taffet’s words managed to worm themselves back into his head, and their last conversation played out over and over.

He had been so distracted by this that he didn’t even notice Hodgins approaching the car until the entomologist rapped his knuckles against the window. Sweets managed to stop himself from jerking in shock, but was not able to keep all of his surprise out of his demeanor.

“Hey, hey,” Hodgins said as he opened the passenger door and slid into the seat.

“What are you…what are you doing out of the lab?” Sweets asked, his mind still trying to process how Hodgins could have suddenly appeared like that. The psychologist immediately winced at his own words.

‘ _Great Lance…Great way to greet a friend,’_ he chided himself. _‘It’s not like Hodgins has been serving time in prison or something.’_

“I need to talk to you,” the entomologist continued, seemingly unaffected by Sweets’ question.  He then reached out to pat Sweets’ arm.

“By the way, good to see that you’re ok,” Hodgins added. “We were worried about you.” It was clear that Hodgins meant it in an affectionate way, but Sweets could not help but feel even more depressed at his words.

‘ _Booth, Caroline, Cam and now Angela and Hodgins,’_ he thought to himself glumly. ‘ _I guess everyone is pretty much on board with the idea that I can’t handle what happened.’_

Despite his feelings of defeat, Sweets figured that he probably should try to put up a good front.

“No reason to be worried,” the psychologist replied while attempting a more relaxed demeanor.

“Cool, I just need your professional opinion on something,” Hodgins charged on.

Sweets raised an eyebrow; of all the things Hodgins could have said, he certainly wasn’t expecting that. After giving his assent, the therapist watched as Hodgins closed his eyes and lowered the back of his seat until the entomologist was in reclining position.

‘ _What is he doing?’_ Sweets wondered. ‘ _Making some kind of impromptu therapist’s couch?’_ In different circumstances, Sweets might have found the gesture playful, but right now he couldn’t stop himself from being slightly annoyed.

“I’ve been having some pretty strong feelings about what happened yesterday,” the entomologist dived in. “I mean, am I wrong to be happy?”

“Happy that the Gravedigger is dead?” Sweets asked.

“Yes,” Hodgins nearly whispered with a smile. “I mean, I’m completely ok with it. In fact, it’s the best thing that’s happened to me all week.”

Sweets looked away. He tried to keep in mind that Hodgins had actually been buried alive by Taffet and that that event had haunted the entomologist for years. It was probably natural that Hodgins felt a measure of relief.

Plus, Sweets figured that the fact that Hodgins hadn’t been there to watch Taffet’s head disintegrate made it far less traumatic for the entomologist anyway.

“But Ange, I don’t know. She thinks I’ve gone off the deep end or something,” Hodgins continued.

“Right…um no, what you’re feeling is not uncommon,” Sweets assured him. “The victim of a crime of feels ambivalent in the aftermath. They have feelings of guilt or relief or even a sense of…let’s not call it pleasure….”

The psychologist paused, regretting adding in the word “pleasure”. He worried that it might imply that he thought that Hodgins was reveling in some kind of sadistic glee.

For his part though, Hodgins had little trouble jumping into this part of the conversation.

“ ** _Let’s_** call it pleasure,” the entomologist said, starting to sit back up, his face eager and excited.

‘ _Way to go…misread the situation again,’_ Sweets chided inwardly. ‘ _I’m sure doing a whole lot of nothing for my friends right now.’_

But even as he continued reassuring Hodgins, Sweets could not get rid of a nagging question from crossing his mind.

“Do you believe that Heather Taffet got what she deserved?” the psychologist asked.

“Do you?”

Sweets turned back toward the front of the car. He had never been one of those “eye for an eye” types of people, but he couldn’t deny that there were times when his soul cried out for some kind of justice. He thought back to all of the things Andrew had done to him and everything Taffet had done to other people and wondered if there was any punishment that could make up for all of it.

“I do,” Sweets finally nodded.

“Me too,” Hodgins sighed. “I feel much better Sweets.”

“You felt good in the first place,” Sweets shrugged, wondering what possible benefit Hodgins could have gotten out of their conversation.

“I felt good that the Gravedigger was dead,” Hodgins corrected. “I feel doubly good that my wife was wrong.” The entomologist then opened the door and climbed out.

“Thanks buddy,” Hodgins added. “You’re a big help.”

“If you say so,” Sweets responded with no enthusiasm.

“I’ll see you later,” Hodgins called back as he walked away. Sweets watched him leave out of the corner of his eye while keeping most of his gaze focused on the windshield.

‘ _Would it have mattered if I had said anything different? All I did was tell him something he probably wanted to hear in the first place. So much for my “psychological insights”.’_

Sweets went back to staring at his car door. He knew that he couldn’t really leave nor could he stay in this garage forever.

Whether he wanted to deal with it or not, at some point he would have to face the rest of his day.

* * *

 

Booth sat in his office at the Hoover building, contemplating his next move carefully.

After the gristly discovery he and Brennan had made of in Tracy Laveck’s apartment, the agent had become even more determined to catch this sniper

 _‘She didn’t do anything,’_ the agent thought bitterly. ‘ _She minded her own business and wasn’t involved in anything shadier than her escort service. She certainly did not deserve to end up like that.’_

Cam had called him a little while ago and informed him that Laveck had died approximately six days before Taffet was scheduled to appear in court, and that fact worried him.

‘ _Whoever this is, they’ve got access to inside information,’_ Booth mused. ‘ _That kind of edge along with his level of shooting skill…this guy is truly dangerous. And there’s only a few people I know who are this dangerous.’_

Booth grimaced as he made up a short list of names for his people to pull up background information on. Brennan had been pretty much spot on when she mentioned that “members of an elite group tend to know each other”. He had at least a nodding acquaintance with every name he came up with…and they all knew him as well.

Eventually he had been able to compile a list of six names who he could see pulling of a job like this. On the surface, this seemed like a wild shot in the dark, but Booth also knew that this was the best he could come up with at this point.

Looking over his list one more time, the agent hesitated. There was one last name that had popped into his head…someone who he knew had more than enough skill and cunning to pull off this shooting.

Someone who Booth knew was fond of using handmade copper bullets.

But just as quickly, Booth dismissed the idea and headed out the bullpen to give his list to his people.

‘ _It’s not him. He wouldn’t go off on his own like this. He’s a good man, not a contract killer or some crazed vigilante. And he would go and kill innocent civilians like Laveck. It’s got to be someone else. Someone else who’s just using a similar kind of signature.’_

* * *

 

Booth’s people acted quickly and within an hour he had comprehensive files on each of the six people on the list. Flipping through the files, the agent tried to think of ways to further narrow down the possibilities, but came up empty. Even accounting for alibis didn’t seem sufficient at this point because Booth knew that all of them had the presence of mind to construct a solid alibi to suit their purposes.

The agent frowned as he closed the files up and began to brood. Giving up was not part of Seeley Booth’s nature, but he knew that his current approach was not working.

‘ _Maybe I’m too close to this,’_ he thought. ‘ _Maybe knowing all these people and being a sniper myself is making it hard for me to see them in this sort of light. Perhaps what I need is a different perspective.’_

Booth glanced back at the files and noticed a couple of papers sticking out of one of them. He went to push them back in when he saw that they were part of a psychological evaluation for one of his suspects. A light immediately went on in the agent’s head.

‘ _Of course…I’ll have Sweets look these over. He’s already got some idea about the twisted mindset that would lead to a sniper acting this way. He could probably spot some kind of vigilante mojo from these personal files…At the very least, it could cut down on the number of leads to pursue.’_

Decision made, Booth scooped up the files and headed off to Sweets’ office. Upon arriving, the agent noticed that Sweets’ secretary, Becky Sands, seemed to be getting ready to leave for the day.

“Hi Becky,” Booth smiled at her. “Is he in?” Becky smiled back; Booth had become a part of her workday almost as much as Sweets had, and the two of them had developed a cordial relationship.

“Yes, Agent Booth, he arrived about an hour ago,” she replied. “He doesn’t have a patient right now, so feel free to go see him…In fact, he cancelled all his appointments today and when I mentioned something about a personal matter that needs attention, he told me that I could take the day off if I wanted to.”

Despite her friendly manner, Booth could sense the concern the secretary had at Sweets’ behavior, and it matched concerns of his own. Becky then began to fumble with her purse and headed for the door.

“I think I’ll come back later if I can,” she said. “In case he needs something…But if there was something you needed I could….”

“I’ve got things covered here,” Booth told her. “Thank you for the offer.”

“Well then if there’s nothing else,” she said as she started to walk out. “I…I hope Doctor Sweets feels better soon.”

Booth nodded and watched her leave before turning to knock on Sweets’ door. After hearing the therapist acknowledge him, Booth marched in.

Once inside, he found Sweets slumped in the chair he normally occupied during therapy sessions. The psychologist stood to greet him, and Booth saw the dark circles under his eyes, the haggard expression on his face, and the lack of a tie all of which pointed toward Sweets’ disjointed state of mind.

“Good morning, Agent Booth,” he said in a congenial, but bland voice. “Any leads on the case?”

“Maybe,” Booth said as he sat the files down onto the coffee table. He then explained what happened when he visited Laveck’s apartment and the news Cam had given him about the escort’s time of death.

All throughout this, Sweets nodded, but did not respond, and Booth had to work hard to hide his frustration at the listless demeanor that had infected the psychologist.

“Anyway, these files give detailed information about the snipers who could pull off a shot like this who operate on this side of the country,” the agent said. “All of them also have psych evaluations, so I was thinking that you could look over them. See if any of them might have that whole Transformer distortion thing you were talking about.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Sweets mumbled as he slid back down into his chair and picked up a file.

“Thanks Sweets,” Booth said, patting his shoulder. “Let me know what you come up with.”

“Mmhm,” the therapist nodded as he scanned through the pages. Booth started to walk out, but hesitated as his fingers brushed the doorknob.

“Sweets…whoever did this…he will not be easy to catch,” Booth said, turning back toward the psychologist. “Especially if it is one of these guys. The level of skill and training they all have make them a threat to almost everyone. Bones and her people are handling the forensic end, so I’m going to need to help me on the investigative side.”

Sweets looked up from the file, giving Booth his full attention despite the hollow look in his eyes.

“I need my whole team on this one,” Booth added. “It’s the only way I’m going to be able to catch this guy.”

“I understand,” Sweets said, a more determined look starting to form on his face. “I’ll let you know what I come up with.”

The agent nodded in response and left, hoping that his words had gotten through to Sweets.

* * *

 

Back in the office, the psychologist spent the next two hours reading through the files he had been given, searching for any kind of insight that could raise a red flag at anyone in particular. It ended up being a fruitless search, however, and Sweets ended up tossing the files back onto the coffee table and staring at the carpet.

‘ _Booth’s counting on me to help him, and I’ve got nothing,’_ he thought.

‘ _Everyone knows who’s the weakest link in the chain.’_

 _‘Well if Booth hasn’t figured it out yet, he will by the time this case is resolved,’_ Sweets thought. ‘ _He’ll see that I contributed nothing of value…It’ll just confirm what the others probably already know…It’s only a matter of time before they decide to cut ties….’_

As he mulled over this, Sweets’ eyes wandered around the floor where he spotted a lone manila file that had fallen off the table. Toward the center of it was a small red point from a marker.

Sweets couldn’t fathom why it suddenly occurred to him that that folder would make a good makeshift bulls-eye, but soon that was all he could think about.

At least it seemed like a good way to take his mind off what was sure to come.


	5. Chapter 5

Caroline Julian marched with purpose toward Sweets’ office, hoping to find something to reassure her that they were actually making progress on this case.

Booth had just brought her up to speed on the Leveque murder, and it had managed to cast a whole new light on the investigation.

‘ _Somehow that maniac has found a way to access inside information,’_ she thought as a scowl began to form on her face. ‘ _Who knows what he has found out about our investigation…or even about other potential targets.’_

The scowl deepened; even though she hadn’t really been unhappy with the prospect of Taffet getting what she had coming to her a little early, the idea of someone within the justice department aiding a vigilante made her see red. Now that she could add Leveque’s murder to the mix, the prosecutor decided to make it a point to come down hard on everyone involved given the chance.

After their discussion, Booth mentioned that he was running by the lab to see what Brennan and her team had come up with recently and told her that Sweets was profiling the six suspects that the agent had named as being capable of pulling off the shot that killed Taffet. With little else to do at the moment, Caroline decided to check on the psychologist’s progress.

She frowned again though when she thought of Sweets. Normally she wasn’t very fond of shrinks and profilers, feeling that most of them were too self-assured and out-of-touch with real people to be of much use. When she heard about the Bureau’s assignment of one of the youngest psychologists they had ever hired to the DC branch, she had not been impressed and expected little from him.

But then when she saw Booth’s interest in the therapist and realized how much he valued his opinion and his talents, her mindset began to change.

‘ _Seeley Booth is a lot of things…and one of those is an excellent judge of character,’_ she mused. ‘ _He wouldn’t rely on that kid so much if there wasn’t something there.’_

Over time, she found herself becoming somewhat fond of Sweets himself, albeit begrudgingly. The psychologist’s strong work ethic along with his dedication to his teammates and natural talent slowly helped him to earn her respect…even if she still thought of him as a kid who still needed some more guidance and growth.

‘ _I need to stop having so many soft spots,’_ she sighed. ‘ _It’s making me all gushy inside and I don’t do gushy.’_

It was one of those soft spots, however, that had made the prosecutor watch Sweets carefully throughout this investigation. She hadn’t thought that it was a good idea for him to return to work so soon, but Booth insisted that it would be worse if they had excluded the therapist, and she had trusted the agent’s judgment.

But Sweets’ evasiveness and reluctance had not escaped Caroline’s notice and she had been trying to get to the bottom of it all along. She had wanted to question him further yesterday after the discussion she and Booth had had with the psychologist in his office, but Booth had put a halt to that before it really began. She had thought about pushing harder, but figured that she would have run up against Booth if she had.

‘ _Booth doesn’t like to show it, but there is no getting at any of “his people” while he’s around,’_ she thought to herself. ‘ _I wonder if that kid has any idea of how protective Booth is of him.’_

Despite her concerns for Sweets, Caroline wanted to focus on the investigation at hand.

‘ _There’s a deranged sniper out there who could be gearing up to use DC as his own personal hunting ground. That kid needs to get his head back in the game and help Booth catch him.’_

Once she was outside the door to Sweets’ office, Caroline paused to consider her strategy to deal with the psychologist. She was certain that having Taffet’s blood and brain matter splatter all over him had severely shaken Sweets, but after watching him for the rest of the day yesterday, she began to suspect that there was more to it than that.

As she stood there, Caroline was suddenly struck with an inspiration.

‘ _Taffet was talking to him right before it happened….I told Booth to watch out for that. That woman was able to mess with Doctor Brennan’s head, and she’s probably done the same thing here.’_

Certain that she had an idea of what was going on, Caroline went ahead and opened up the door to Sweets’ outer office. As she did, she was startled to find the therapist shooting rubber bands at a handmade target on the wall opposite of him. A part of her wanted to smack him upside the head for wasting time like this.

But once Sweets sensed her presence, he jumped violently and whirled toward her with wide, frightened eyes. His strong reaction managed to soften her feelings a bit.

“Sorry cher,” she said in a voice that surprised her in its gentleness. “Didn’t mean to startle you when you’re traumatized.”

To his credit, Sweets almost immediately regained some composure and casually walked into his office proper.

“No, no…Agent Booth asked me to look into the psychological background of our six suspects,” he said as he settled back into his chair at the center of the office.

“But here you are with a look on your face like a hamster’s running around inside your head,” Caroline replied. She then watched him slump down further into his chair and begin to play with one of the many knick knacks he had scattered around the office. Seeing his defeated, almost shameful posture, the prosecutor saw all the signs she had observed over the past day fall into place.

“I knew it,” she said, moving toward the offensive. “I told that judge that bitch was going to mess with your mind.” In that moment, Caroline decided to have a talk with Booth later about how he needed to listen to her warnings once in a while.

With a sigh, Sweets played the recording of his conversation with Taffet for the prosecutor. Caroline listened to Taffet’s words, disgust making her frown again.

‘ _Typical prosecutor tactic…tear down the expert by making them doubt themselves,’_ she thought to herself. ‘ _Taffet always did favor the nastier tricks from the playbook.’_

“You know what she was doing, don’t you?” she asked.

“Her strategy was to shake me,” Sweets mumbled without looking up.

“To the bone, cherie,” Caroline asserted. “By the time she was done with you, you couldn’t get up on that stand if you tried.”

“You’re right, I couldn’t,” the psychologist agreed. “Makes sense.”

Caroline huffed but held her tongue. A part of her was tempted to walk out and find some other way to work on the investigation, but she managed to stop herself.

‘ _Doctor Brennan and her team have got the forensic parts covered and Booth’s got his hands full trying to run down some kind of investigative lead….But Booth’s going to need boy genius here at some point to help him sort through everything. At the very least, he’s going to need him as a sounding board for his gut. Dealing with and helping Booth work through his hunches and intuitions…that’s not something the squints are really adept at doing.’_

Caroline sighed heavily. Having watched the psychologist work with her office for over three years now, she was certain of one method to reach him…even if that involved something she was not at all comfortable with.

She walked over and carefully perched herself onto the couch across from Sweets. She then steeled herself for what came next.

“I’ve never been so scared,” she said haltingly. “As when her head…flew to pieces.” Caroline hated how watery her voice had become, but did nothing to hide it.

“Don’t tell anyone,” she continued, grateful that she had caught the psychologist’s attention. “I messed myself.”

“You did?” Sweets said, his voice strangely hollow even as his gaze grew even more intense. Caroline nodded in response, trying hard not to flinch at the way Sweets was staring at her.

She remembered Booth telling her about Sweets’ so-called “creepy stares” and how much they unnerved him at first. At the time, she had found it hard to believe that this kid could spook someone like Booth that much and figured that the agent was pulling her leg for some reason.

But now that she was on the receiving end of one of them, Caroline couldn’t deny the feeling that Sweets was staring right through her, getting inside her head with just a look, and that gave her an involuntary shiver down her back. She knew that from this day forward, she would never look at him in quite the same way again.

Caroline straightened her spine and cleared her throat a little as she slipped back into her professional mode.

“We’re all just people, cherie,” she said. “You’re an expert with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Now, who’s Heather Taffet?”

“Dead serial killer,” Sweets said, finally sitting upright in his chair.

“You’re damn straight,” she nearly hissed. “Doctor Brennan has her head all rigged up, spinning like a Christmas tree.”

The prosecutor leaned a little closer, making sure all the while to maintain eye contact with Sweets.

“It’s over,” she said, letting that soft edge bleed back into her voice. “She can’t get to any of us anymore.”

Caroline watched as the corner of Sweets’ mouth curled upward into a bitter shadow of a smile. She then knew that she had gotten through to him, and thus stood up and began to smooth her skirt back down.

“I’ll leave you to your work, Doctor Sweets,” she said as she made her way to the door. “I’m sure Booth will want your findings as soon as possible.”

“Understood,” the psychologist nodded as he began to rearrange the files on his coffee table back into a neat pile.

“All right then,” she said as she walked out, shutting the door behind her. She was about to head off into the hallway when she spied the target still taped to the wall. In one fluid motion, she snatched it from where it was hanging and tossed it into the garbage can as she walked away.

* * *

 

Back in the office, Sweets began to carefully read through each file again, determined to find something he might have missed the first time.

As he paged through the first file, his mind occasionally wandered back to Caroline’s visit. After experiencing her mostly gruff attitude toward him in the past, the last thing he had expected was for her to show so much open concern for him.

A tiny part of him also wondered if there had been an ulterior motive at the heart of her actions. Sweets recalled how she had lured him back to the FBI a few months ago by implying that Booth needed him to help him work through some PTSD that presented itself after his short return stint in the Army. The psychologist considered the possibility that her talk with him had been done with a similar goal in mind: to pull him back to work rather than to tend to him personally.

But as he continued to leaf through the file, Sweets managed to set those thoughts to the side.

‘ _Even if that was all she was doing, it doesn’t matter,’_ he told himself. ‘ _Taffet’s killer is still out there, and now we know that he’ll take out anyone who gets in the way of his objective…Even if they’re completely harmless like Leveque…Booth’s right; this guy is dangerous.’_

The psychologist sat up even straighter in his chair and picked up another file.

_‘I have to put my personal problems aside and work on this case…Even if my efforts are small in the grand scheme of things, I should try to do something to stop this guy.’_

His mind made up, Sweets put his entire focus into each file, picking apart every detail to find any sort of lead.

* * *

 

Unfortunately after three hours of careful scrutiny, the therapist found that he was still coming up empty.

_‘These snipers all have individual quirks and some even have a couple minor issues…but none of them are exhibiting signs of the kind of mindset that would propel them to commit murders like these ones.’_

Sweets slapped the last file down in frustration and rubbed his temples.

_‘What am I missing here? We know that the killer has to be another sniper. Not only that they have to be one of a select few snipers in order to pull off Taffet’s assassination. Booth was able to narrow it down…So why can’t I see anything?’_

The psychologist slouched back against his chair. He wanted to find some way to help, but he was beginning to have doubts about being able to contribute any additional assistance to this case beyond the skeletal profile he had offered earlier of the kind of sniper Booth should look for.

Just then there was a knock on his door and one of Booth’s assistants walked in with a hefty file in his hands.

“Doctor Sweets? Agent Booth needs you to add this to your pool of suspects to profile for the Taffet case,” the agent said. “He’s left for the Jeffersonian and wanted me to tell you that he wants to meet with you in the conference area of the bullpen in an hour.”

“All right, thank you,” Sweets said as he took the file. The agent left without another word, and Sweets began to page through this new file.

After almost an hour of close reading and note-taking, Sweets reached an epiphany.

_‘This is it…This is the one we should be looking at. He shows every symptom of acting within a vigilante mindset and is exactly the kind of person who would rationalize taking out someone like the Gravedigger…through any means necessary.’_

Sweets continued to analyze the file and was disturbed by the realization that not only was this probably their prime suspect but that this man’s skill and cunning was on par with Booth’s: a fact that Sweets feared would make catching him even more difficult than previously thought.

As he worked, the therapist absentmindedly brushed his fingers along his collar, his mind registering that something was missing.

‘ _Booth expects me to meet with him in a little bit,’_ Sweets thought as he reached into his pocket. ‘ _So I need to be ready.’_

* * *

 

A few minutes later, Booth arrived with Brennan in tow. He found both Sweets and Caroline waiting for him near the corkboards and charts that had been set up with the most current information on the case. Caroline had watched him approach, and he noted the impatient look on her face.

Sweets, on the other hand, was thoroughly preoccupied with his notes and the file he had been given and had only given a brief, polite greeting to their arrival. That alone was an encouraging sign to Booth, but then he noticed additional details like the fact that Sweets was wearing a tie again and the way his eyes were lit up with intensity.

Booth thought about commenting on this change in demeanor, but decided instead to talk about their newest suspect: Jacob Ripken Broadsky.

As he went over what he knew about Broadsky, Booth had to admit that despite his previous misgivings, Jake was looking like the most likely suspect and soon Caroline and Brennan were on board with the idea.

Sweets kept up the momentum of the discussion, quoting from his notes and injecting facts from the file which strengthened the argument to consider Broadsky the prime suspect.

But even with the mounting evidence, Booth still found it hard to believe that Jake was their man.

‘ _It makes sense but…why would Jake do this?’_ the agent asked himself. ‘ _This is nothing like the Jake Broadsky I know.’_

As the group went over Broadsky’s actions while he was a member of the Dallas HRT, Booth found his unease increasing. When he had heard about the shooting, he had pretty much agreed with Broadsky’s reasoning for taking the shot and thought him proactive in saving the life of the hostage. Booth now had to confront the fact that Broadsky had acted outside the accepted code of conduct.

Still, the agent didn’t enjoy the nagging feeling of defensiveness he felt while listening to them.

“His unit began calling him the ‘Hand of God’,” Sweets read from his notepad.

“Implying sole judgment and the ability to act outside of human control,” Brennan piped in.

“That wasn’t his job,” Caroline added. “He should have waited for a green light.”

“Well he thought he was doing the right thing,” Booth replied. Even as he said this, Booth saw Sweets give a slight tilt to the head, and he knew that something had piqued the psychologist’s interest.

“You’re glad he did it, aren’t you?” Sweets said as he walked toward him.

“No…I don’t condone it,” Booth responded, meeting the therapist’s inquisitive stare.

“You admire it,” Sweets continued. “You hold two beliefs at once. It’s called cognitive dissidence.”

“I understand it,” Booth clarified in a tone that conveyed his desire to end this line of thought. Sweets nodded; his mind clearly still working through what had been said even though he let the discussion drop. Initially, Booth was annoyed that Sweets wasn’t going to let this go completely, but then he realized that he preferred the Sweets who was willing to challenge his thinking and assert his own psychological viewpoint into an investigation to the shadow who had been all too willing to fade into the background while offering only limited insights when forced.

But now Booth found himself even more curious as to what had prompted this change in the therapist’s attitude. A second later, Caroline’s phone rang, and the resulting lull in the conversation gave the agent the opening he needed.

“What happened to you?” Booth asked him.

“Caroline hollered at me,” Sweets answered.

Despite the gravity of the current situation, Booth felt the corner of his mouth curl up toward a smile. He was grateful that Caroline had found a way to motivate Sweets and made a mental note to treat the prosecutor to a drink at some point to thank her and to ask about her technique.

Caroline’s next words shifted the agent’s attention firmly back onto the case as she informed everyone about how Broadsky had used the alias of a well-known and long-dead sniper to cash a check for two million dollars.

‘ _Bill was right,’_ Booth thought to himself. ‘ _Using the name of a famous sniper from history is totally Jake’s style.’_

His mood took an even more somber turn though when Caroline mentioned that James Kent had withdrawn the same amount of money.

‘ _That’s why he didn’t run with everyone else when Taffet was shot,’_ the agent pondered. ‘ _He knew that she was the only target…He must have been filming the whole thing for some kind of verification of services rendered.’_

As Booth put the pieces together, he found no comfort at the solution. A father himself, Booth could empathize with Kent’s thirst for revenge and for a brief moment, he wondered if he would have taken the shot himself if Taffet had been able to get to Parker.

The agent sighed inwardly and started to swallow down those feelings. He knew that he couldn’t let himself relate too much to Kent in order to do his job which was to catch a murderer. That meant that he would have to go after Kent in full-force so that he could not only arrest him, but possibly get a lead on Broadsky as well.

Booth clenched his jaw; no matter what he did, everything about this case had felt tainted from the start.

And it didn’t look like the trend was going to change any time soon.

* * *

 

Sweets and Brennan sat across from a series of maps in the bullpen while Booth went over how the Bureau had finally been able to get some leads on Broadsky’s whereabouts. Unfortunately, arresting Kent turned up nothing useful, and at the moment, he was conferring with his lawyer in one of the interrogation rooms.

Caroline, however, still had plenty of resources to tap and she had managed to get Broadsky’s name and photograph onto several news stations in a short span of time. The action immediately turned up numerous tips and happily some of them were solid.

That eventually led to the psychologist listening as Booth explained how Broadsky was not only sticking around but was actually on the offensive.

‘ _That kind of confidence and audacity despite being on the hook for two murders?’_ Sweets wondered. ‘ _Booth was right in saying how dangerous this guy is. And chances are with the way he rationalizes his kills, he won’t stop with Tafftet.’_

As he considered this, one of the junior agents gave Booth a file on the property ownership of the land plots in the area where Broadsky had been spotted. As the agent skimmed through it, Sweets continued to try to brainstorm ideas.

“What if we recruit volunteers for a ground search?” the psychologist asked.

“Like a grid search for evidence?” Brennan added.

But Booth brushed the idea aside, pointing out that there probably wouldn’t be too many people willing to help hunt down the man who killed the Gravedigger. At first Sweets considered offering another suggestion, but something in Booth’s voice caught his attention.

“Broadsky purchased ten acres of land off the highway,” the agent said quietly.

“Under the name of another sniper?” Sweets asked.

“Seeley Booth,” Booth said, finally looking up. “This is between me and him.”

Sweets was unable to hide his shock at this turn of events.

‘ _Booth’s right about Broadsky making this personal,’_ he thought. The psychologist then began to wonder if this had been Broadsky’s intent all along while he considered the facts that Booth had been heavily involved in the Gravedigger case for a while now and that Booth was one of the few snipers who could be considered Broadsky’s equal.

But with that thought came the worry that Booth might begin to make this personal as well. Sweets wasn’t very concerned that Booth would stray outside the law, but he did worry that Broadsky could unnerve the agent enough to make a mistake.

And the therapist was certain that even the smallest mistake could be enough to cost someone their life at this point.

Brennan left to return to the lab, and Sweets watched Booth work with his fellow agents for a while to gather more information about the plot of land that had been bought under his name and about the area in general. Eventually the agent started to leave the bullpen, and the psychologist bolted after him.

“Agent Booth, the fact that Broadsky used your name to buy that piece of land might have been a ploy to goad you,” Sweets said as he tried to match the agent’s brisk stride.

“Uh-huh,” Booth mumbled as he looked into his notepad.

“Broadsky probably has little in the way of feelings or passion in relation to the things that he’s done,” Sweets continued. “Such impassiveness might be a way to give himself an edge.”

“Is there a point here, Sweets?” Booth snapped as he approached the elevator.

“I’m…I’m just saying that Broadsky is obviously expecting you to get involved with his ‘mission’ at some point,” Sweets replied solemnly. “And he’s sending the message that he’s not concerned with any possible interference you could create…possibly because he already has a plan in place in case you confront him.”

The agent punched the down button on the elevator panel and turned back toward Sweets with a scowl on his face.

“Broadsky will do whatever he thinks is necessary to continue on in his work,” the psychologist murmured, looking downward. “Even if that means making anyone who opposes him end up like Heather Taffet.”

At those words, the scowl melted off Booth’s face and he patted the psychologist’s shoulder.

“Sweets, I’m just going to check on a few things regarding Jake’s whereabouts,” Booth said. “I’m not aiming for some kind of showdown with him, all right? So don’t worry.”

“Ok,” Sweets nodded. The elevator dinged, and Booth stepped through the opening doors.

“I’ll be back in a while,” Booth told him. “You just keep working your psychological mojo on Broadsky’s file. See if you can give me a general idea of who he might go after next.”

“I’m on it,” Sweets said. “Talk to you later?”

Booth nodded as the elevator doors closed. The psychologist continued to watch the elevator while the panel lights indicated the agent’s descent.  Despite Booth’s assurances, he couldn’t stop thinking about what Broadsky did to Taffet and dreaded the idea that there was even a remote chance that Booth could meet a similar fate.

Sweets shuddered and slowly trudged back toward his office.

‘ _It should be ok,’_ he told himself. ‘ _Booth said that he wasn’t going for a shootout with Broadsky, and I’m pretty sure that he wasn’t lying. Besides, I should get to work on drawing up some kind of victim “template” like he asked.’_

But while he was able to reason his initial fears away, Sweets was certain that there would still be a gnawing sense of worry in his heart until Broadsky was either caught or killed.

He just hoped that there wouldn’t be any more casualties along the way.


	6. Chapter 6

Sweets trudged into the elevator and slammed the iron cage door shut. As he started the ride up the floors of the building, he began to have doubts about the wisdom of his current endeavor.

* * *

 

After Booth had left the Hoover Building, the psychologist immediately went to work on the victim profile that the agent had asked for. After three hours of work, Sweets had been able to make a rough draft of what to look for although he admitted to himself that he would probably would need more data to make it complete. He figured that he would try talking to Booth when he got back about additional factors that a sniper has to consider to help him refine his profile.

But after another couple of hours without any sign from Booth, Sweets became apprehensive. That apprehension blossomed into worry as he tried to distract himself by catching up on other profiling assignments that he had neglected over the past couple of days.

About an hour later, Sweets found out that his fears had been warranted when he got a call from Brennan, who was at the hospital. She told him that Booth had been injured in the field and was being treated in the emergency field.

The moment he heard the news, Sweets was filled with a mixture of fear, confusion and more than a little hurt.

‘ _He lied…He told me that he wasn’t going to confront Broadsky, but that must be what he did….And I believed him.’_

Despite his hurt feelings, Sweets could not stop himself from worrying even more about Booth, and he immediately rushed over to the hospital. After meeting up with the others, Sweets was relieved to hear that Booth’s injuries were minor: a twisted ankle and a dislocated shoulder. He would be released in a couple of hours.

After hearing the good news, the therapist surprised everyone, including himself, by choosing to go back to work instead of waiting for Booth. He asked Cam to keep him updated on Booth’s condition and then promptly left.

Once he arrived back in his office, Sweets buried himself into his work as a way to give himself some space. He worked steadily into the late evening, trying his best to focus on the tasks at hand instead of his own jangled feelings. Eventually exhaustion hit and Sweets was forced to admit that he wouldn’t be making any more progress that day, so he stretched out on the floor to reflect for a while.

Minutes after he settled in, his cell phone rang in his pocket, and Sweets answered it. It was Cam telling him that Booth had checked out of the hospital with no complications and that Brennan was taking him to the Royal Diner to meet up with Caroline for a while. Sweets thanked her and after he hung up, he went back to brooding.

A part of him was still upset that Booth had lied to him, but mostly he felt confused and anxious over the events over the past couple days. Taffet had stirred up the long-standing fears that the psychologist had about his position within the team and the strength of the bonds that he had with each of them. The fact that they seemed to be fine with working without him and had isolated him away from the case continued to be unsettling.

After almost an hour of contemplation, Sweets found that he was no closer to figuring things out, and he got up off the floor with a huff. He then gathered his things and wrote his secretary a short note about rescheduling the appointments he had cancelled recently after which he headed home.

Once he arrived at his apartment, Sweets changed into a sweater and jeans and tried to relax. But he found that he was still restless and ended up pacing around his front room instead. He longed for some way to quiet his troubled mind, but could find no inspiration within his home.

Eventually his stomach gurgled and he went to the kitchen to look for something to eat. The psychologist sighed when he realized that he had neglected to stock his shelves again and was about to give up and try to see if he could scrounge up enough for a sandwich when he was hit with an overwhelming craving for his mother’s lasagna.  

‘ _I’d have to go out and buy the stuff for that,’_ he thought. _‘Plus, Mom’s recipe always makes way more than I could eat by myself. I’d have to find someone to share it with.’_

Sweets frowned as he leaned against the counter. Daisy was out of town, and he knew almost everyone else he knew had plans for the evening. But then it occurred to him that there was one person who would probably be staying in tonight.

The psychologist let out another sigh as his shoulders slumped downward. He wasn’t sure if he would be a welcome guest at Booth’s apartment, but something inside him yearned to help others somehow and making a home-cooked meal for an injured friend seemed like a good way to do it.

Decision made, Sweets grabbed a couple things off the stand by the door and left to go shopping.

* * *

 

All that led to where Sweets was now riding the elevator up to Booth’s apartment with a pair of grocery bags in his hands. Once he got off the elevator though, Sweets found that his doubts about this gesture were starting to become overwhelming, and he was tempted to go back the way he came.

‘ _I already bought all this stuff and came over here,’_ he thought. ‘ _Might as well go through with it.’_

Sweets took a deep breath and finished walking over the door. He hesitated for one last second before knocking.

* * *

 

Inside the apartment, Booth had settled onto the couch and was preparing to spend the evening watching television when his stomach growled. He wasn’t in the mood for takeout, but was too weary to make anything either. He thought about going to the refrigerator to see if there were any leftovers when he heard a knock at the door.

The knock startled the agent. Hannah was out of town on assignment for the weekend, Brennan mentioned that she was heading back to the Jeffersonian to catalog some more remains and practically everyone else he knew was home by this time of day. He hadn’t been expecting anyone…and he certainly did not expect the next voice he heard.

“Booth?”

“Sweets?” the agent replied as he maneuvered himself toward the door. He opened it to find the psychologist standing in the hallway with grocery bags slung over his wrists.

“What’s all this?” Booth wondered. Sweets fidgeted a little and looked off to the side.

“Um, Cam mentioned your ankle and shoulder,” the therapist said. “And I thought…I thought that if you hadn’t had dinner yet that I could….”

“Sweets…you’re making me dinner?” Booth said, more than a little surprised by the offer. The psychologist blushed and started to back away when Booth grabbed his arm.

“What are you going to make?” he said as he guided Sweets in.

“My mother’s lasagna,” Sweets answered while shutting the door behind him. “It’s a pretty simple dish, but it’s good.”

“Sweets, I…Here, I should clean out the kitchen,” Booth said, starting to hobble toward the other room. The therapist held out a hand to stop him.

“No, it’s ok. I can manage,” he said. “You should probably relax anyway.”

Sweets transported the bags to the kitchen and then came back out to the front room long enough to empty his pockets onto the coffee table and roll up his sleeves before returning.

Booth had to admit that standing was starting to make his ankle ache, so he plopped back down onto the couch. He could hear the clatter of pots and pans and figured that he could let Sweets handle it himself.

Besides, a large portion of him was still shocked to see the psychologist in the first place.

Despite his initial thoughts against it, Booth felt compelled to confront Broadsky about what he had done on his own. The meeting had not only led to Broadsky getting away, but to a frustrating and mostly embarrassing trip to the emergency room. Brennan had called the rest of the team and almost all of them were there to check on him when he was released….all except Sweets. At first Booth had been surprised that the psychologist wasn’t there, but then he remembered what he had told him before leaving the Hoover Building.

 _‘I told him that I wasn’t going to face Broadsky and then that’s exactly what I end up doing,’_ he thought to himself at the time. ‘ _He was already so anxious over the whole thing with Taffet, I didn’t want to add to his concerns…But I’m sure that’s now how it came off to him.’_

Booth sighed and felt back against the couch. Putting aside the lie he told Sweets, he knew that he hadn’t acted with his best judgment. His instincts had told him that it was a bad idea to face Broadsky alone; it was a reckless, foolhardy decision that he could not rationalize no matter how much he tried. But after some careful reflection, Booth knew that part of the reason he did it was because he still could not wrap his head around the idea of Broadsky becoming a cold-blooded vigilante.

‘ _That wasn’t the Jake that I knew…But maybe…Maybe I just don’t know him as much as I thought…if at all.’_

Booth rubbed his eyes. He had let his personal feelings get in the way, a mistake he could ill-afford to make. He hated to think that he was living in denial about Broadsky.

Part of that being because he would then have to admit that there were other aspects of his life that he wasn’t owning to as well.

The agent’s eyes flickered over to the coffee table. Among the more prosaic objects Sweets had put there like keys and a cell phone, Booth spied a small recording device. He remembered it being on Sweets the day Taffet was killed and had seen it in the therapist’s office the last couple of days.

‘ _Why would he be carrying this around?’_ Booth mused. ‘ _What’s on this thing anyway?’_

Booth picked it up and hit the rewind button. After it finished, he pressed the button to let it play and was startled to hear Taffet’s voice.

‘ _You remind me of a little boy dressed in his father’s suit….’_

_‘You’re forced to live every day as a repressed immature imbecile…’_

_‘Everyone knows who’s the weakest link in the chain…’_

Booth let it play out and then he mashed the off button and tossed it back onto the coffee table.

‘ _Has he been listening to that for the last two days?’_ he wondered. He then figured that this was what had rattled Sweets so much during Taffet’s transport to the court house…right before the psychologist ended up being in the middle of an assassination.

Booth felt rage stir inside him even as Sweets walked back into the room.

“Ok, the food is in the oven, and it’ll be out in….”

Booth looked over when Sweets abruptly stopped talking and watched as his eyes darted about the room. When he saw him stare at the coffee table, Booth knew that Sweets was probably figuring out what had happened.

Booth just hoped that he hadn’t blundered into another bad decision.

* * *

 

After finishing up the prep work for the lasagna, Sweets had slid the pan into the oven and set the timer. He was trying to think of a good way to pass the time while it cooked as he walked back toward the front room.

But once he got there, he was surprised to find Booth staring toward the kitchen, a look of silent rage twisting his features. He was about to ask what was going on when he happened to glance and the coffee table and noticed that something appeared out of place. He swiftly realized that the things from his pockets had been moved, in particular, the recording device that was currently sitting close to the edge of the table.

Sweets sighed inwardly. He hadn’t even remembered picking the device up and couldn’t explain its presence beyond the result of some kind of reflex action. He reasoned that he had probably scooped it up with the rest of his things as he was leaving and didn’t notice because he was so distracted with everything else on his mind.

Now he was faced with the very strong probability that Booth had heard everything on it, and Sweets felt embarrassed and ashamed: embarrassed at his own weakness and ashamed that Booth had been witness to it.

The psychologist slunk over to a nearby chair and sat down, making sure to not lift his eyes from the carpet.

“The food will be ready in about forty-five minutes,” he mumbled. The two of them sat there quietly for a few minutes until Sweets heard Booth sigh and shift into a more comfortable position on the couch.

“Sweets, you remember Taffet’s trial, don’t you?” Booth asked. “How she twisted everything around? How she used every manipulative trick in the book to make us look bad?”

“Yes,” Sweets replied, still refusing to look up.

“I mean, it’s not the first time that some unscrupulous lawyer tried to get under our skin,” Booth continued. “But Taffet…she took it to another level. She tried to get inside our heads and make us feel small and helpless…like she probably did with all her victims as the Gravedigger.”

“I remember,” Sweets said.

“And you know what? It got to us,” the agent continued. “I’m sure you noticed it….Watching Hodgins and Bones have to relive what that bitch did to them…seeing her try to make a fool out of Angela and Cam…I know that at the time, I was actually a little grateful that you didn’t have much of a chance to testify…not because I didn’t think you could do it, but because…because that way at least one of us didn’t have to endure her abuse…I guess I should have known that none of us were really safe from her.”

Sweets continued to keep his head down as Booth told him this and was startled when he felt the agent reach over and clasp his shoulder.

“She got into your head because she had had years of experience with exploiting people’s emotions,” Booth said. “So don’t think for one second that it’s a reflection on you…And by the way, what happened to her on that day and you being in middle of it…I’ve been in combat and seen trained soldiers fall apart in situations that were less graphic than what you experienced.”

The psychologist finally looked up when Booth gently tightened his grasp on his shoulder.

“You’re tough Sweets, but you’re not invincible,” the agent continued. “Take a day off. You need to give yourself time to get over this.”

“No, I have patients I need to see,” Sweets replied. “I can’t keep neglecting them and my practice.”

“All right, all right,” Booth said, patting his shoulder. “But don’t spend the weekend at the office. Take some time for yourself so you can think, ok?”

“All right, I will,” Sweets nodded.

“Good, because we need you back on your A-game as soon as possible,” Booth added.

“To help you work the Broadsky case?”

“Yes, but there’s more to it than that, Sweets,” Booth replied. “I’ve had a lot of experience with being part of a team, and I know that when one of my team suffers, all of us feel the loss. And I can tell you that it won’t be the same until you’re back where you belong…where you’re needed.”

“Thank you, Booth,” Sweets murmured, a grin slowly forming on his face. Booth nodded and they fell back into silence for a while until the buzz of the oven timer caught their attention.

“I’ll get that,” Sweets said as he stood. “You want me to grab you a drink?”

* * *

 

A couple minutes later, they were sipping beers while helping themselves to hearty portions of lasagna.

“Sweets, I’m shocked,” Booth said in between bites. “This is really good. When did you learn to cook?”

“Well, I was pretty lousy at it until about my teens,” Sweets blushed. “It was around that time that my cousin started to tease me about my lack of culinary prowess. Granted, it was all in fun and he still does it to this day…Anyway, because I knew that I would soon be living on my own and because I wanted to show him up a little, I asked my mom to teach me how to cook. We practiced by making some of our favorite recipes together, including this one.”

Booth chuckled and took another generous bite. This was a side of Sweets that he wasn’t expecting, and it occurred to him that there were probably many sides to the therapist that none of them had taken the time to get to know. A mistake he was starting to regret.

“Something bothering you Booth?” Sweets asked, trying his hardest to remove any trace of his clinical side from his tone.

Booth shoved another bite into his mouth and took the time he spent chewing considering his strategy. He had started to mull over the confusion he felt while watching Brennan interact with her father outside the diner. But he also knew what Sweets’ position was about him and Brennan despite his overall show of support of his relationship with Hannah. With everything that had happened over the last two days, the last thing Booth wanted was to have the therapist start to probe into that emotional quagmire.

So he decided to offer up the other thing that was weighing on his mind because he knew that he owed Sweets something right now.

“Listen, I know that what I said to you earlier…that I pretty much lied,” Booth said. “I can‘t excuse it, but for what it’s worth, I really did not mean for it to turn into a lie.”

Sweets looked up from his plate and shifted about in his chair. While it was true that he had been a bit hurt at the lie, he had already decided to let that go while he was shopping for supplied for the meal. Sensing that there was more at play than an attempt to make amends, the psychologist remained silent while Booth continued.

“I honestly thought that I could talk to Jake and convince him to turn himself in,” he said. “Get him to see that what he was doing was wrong even if he had good intentions. I mean, I know why he did it, but I just can’t…I can’t….”

“You can’t accept Broadsky’s rationale for what he did?” Sweets offered. “Because snipers aren’t supposed to make morality calls?”

“Broadsky killed an innocent person just so he could a clear shot on Taffet,” Booth said. “Leveque did not deserve to die like that just so he could get to the Gravedigger. That’s not the kind of thing we were trained to do.”

“Booth, I’m sure that Broadsky’s motivation has far less to do with how he…or you…were trained and more to do with his own psychological issues,” the therapist said.

The agent nodded and took a few more bites, cleaning off his plate. Sweets was about to gather up both their plates and ask him if he wanted a second helping when a sound from Booth stopped him.

“Caroline says that I shouldn’t keep beating myself up over this,” he said. “But I keep thinking about what he might do next. You and I both know that this isn’t going to end with Taffet. Who knows how many other targets he has in mind? And what’s he going to have to do to get to them all?”

Booth leaned forward and stared down at his empty plate.

“If I had just done what I should have in the first place…treated Broadsky like another suspect…then maybe I would have caught him,” he said. “Then no one else would have to get hurt.”

‘ _Like another Tracy Leveque,’_ Sweets thought to himself. He leaned toward Booth.

“You are not responsible for what Broadsky does,” Sweets said. “Even if you had gone the official route, there was no guarantee that you would have gotten him. After all, we are talking about a guy who was able to kill Taffet in a crowd of FBI agents, police officers and court house security. He might have even killed some of your own agents before you could take him.”

“Yeah, that’s what Caroline said too,” Booth huffed.

“And she’s right,” Sweets insisted. “You believed in your friend, and you wanted to avoid a firefight. None of those are the wrong notions to have even if your actions were less than perfect.”

“You got any more of that lasagna?” Booth said, suddenly looking up and holding out his plate.

“Sure, plenty,” Sweets said as he stood up. He reached for Booth’s plate, but the agent felt fast to it.

“Thanks Sweets,” he said quietly. “For dinner and….”

“You’re welcome Booth,” Sweets smiled. He didn’t need to hear the rest of the sentence to appreciate the sentiment behind it.

Booth nodded and let go of his plate, and Sweets took it to the kitchen. As he served up another helping for each of them, he heard the agent turn on the television and settle in. He could still feel the lingering fear and sorrow that Taffet had managed to stir up within him, but as he scooped up more food onto the plates he felt himself relax for the first time since she had spoken to him.

_‘She’s wrong…I’m fortunate to still be here among friends and family…and I should not let people like her make me forget it.’_

The psychologist carried the plate out and offered one to Booth before sitting down to watch TV with him. He knew that he was still in the grip of the battle between the lighter and darker parts of himself.

But for right now, there was nothing more than he needed than this meal and this evening, happy in the knowledge that he didn’t have enjoy either one alone.


End file.
